Yesterday, I watched a trio of middle-schoolers leaping down the street. Full blown leaping. Launching up beyond a jump, hovering in mid-air, and coming down in a beautiful curve. They seemed to possess utter confidence in body mechanics. Utter abandon. I watch my grandkids run that way. Pell mell. No worries about where or how they’ll stop. My boys leap. Tuxedo will launch himself off the bed six feet down the hall. Tiger Tiger, much annoyed when his brother tries to steal his spot, will fly five feet off his cat perch effortlessly. And my favorite rabbit memory: turned loose from their cages onto our Choteau Street lawn, our rabbits would spring straight up, whirl around, bounce down and then vault up and whirl at another angle. The sheer bliss of grass and freedom.
Early December, right outside the UPS store, packages in hand, my foot caught on the pavement and after about three of those wild, arm-waving struggles for recovery, I fell flat on my face. Nothing graceful. Nothing complicated. But loaded with a range of fleeting thoughts, the loudest of which was “Oh shit NO.”
I’ve fallen a lot in my life. In memory, starting with a galloping dive across the McPherson tennis courts early one morning in a summer class. My knee twisted – and to my great delight—tennis lessons ended. I can remember a number of other locations where I’ve fallen: the McPherson post office steps; on a trail in the South St. Vrain drainage of Rocky Mountain National Park; in the middle of 19th Street NW during rush hour in D. C.; scurrying to an outhouse on a Big Island beach; down our Choteau Street back steps where—to Dave’s horror—I shouted out my go-to response “Oh shit” at the top of my lungs.
In all those falls, including my UPS episode, I’ve never broken any bones or suffered long term injury. Just bruises. This time framing my mouth. A drooping Fu Manchu purple mustache.
Falls, of course, terrorize seniors. As Nancy Pelosi recently experienced, falls all too often mean broken hips which, in turn, mean that the mortality clock—already ticking away—ratchets up into high and noisy gear. Even in its phony upbeat reporting, the AARP magazine frequently showcases home improvements that might, just might, prevent (written in a loud whisper)—a fall.
And because we fear falling, we find ourselves more awkward, out-of-balance———-more fall-prone. A vicious circle. Especially in a climate long on snow and ice!
So we grow careful, slower, drawn more to the earth’s gravity. A long way from leaping. From kicking up our heels.
But falling is more than just tricky, annoying business. My thesaurus (What a perfect title for the growling, growing treasured dinosaur of word meanings.) offers more than two dozen uses of “fall” or “falling” or “fell.” A few of which describe gentle scenarios: falling in love, falling asleep, letting the chips fall where they may, falling off a log, falling all over ourselves.
But the thesaurus continues in a darker vein: falling into trouble: falling behind, falling out, the fall of empire, falling pregnant, the sky is falling, falling back, a fallen lady, taking the fall, fall short, fall afoul of. And, god help us, the synonyms are all as ominous: collapse, crash, decline, decrease, depreciate, diminish, dip, dive, dwindle, go down, plummet, plunge, slip, slump, stumble, tumble, abate, backslide, buckle, cascade, drag, droop, ebb, flag, flop, lapse, lessen, pitch, recede, regress, relapse, subside, topple, tooter, trip, wane.
The bleakest reference takes us back to Adam and Eve – and their spectacular, cataclysmic fall from grace. From God. From Paradise. Just one small, all-too-human dicey decision and out they go into the wilderness of temptation and loneliness. Never really to return except through—and here the means are defined differently by different religions: alms, good works, confession, mitvahs, indulgences, good deeds, tithes, penance. None of which guarantee a return to paradise.
So I believe that we never get over the overweening, sinister associations that a fall carries. It comes with bodily shock and then embarrassment and shame. In fact, the thesaurus and the dictionary imply and reinforce the idea that falling isn’t accidental. Instead, it’s something that we triggered. It’s our fault. Or at least within our control to stop. So, beyond the bounds of say a sport like football or our roly-poly childhoods when we bounce off our buns , we try hard never to fall. Even football comes with the goal of tackling our opponents to the ground while staying on our feet into the endzone. In fits of irrationality, we assume responsibility for hitting the earth, losing our reputations or our businesses or our bank balances. Sometimes we are responsible—but not always. Yet, no matter the actual cause of a fall, we usually, quickly feel shame.
I’ve been ruminating on all of this since that day at the UPS store. One fall, one label that carries such weight. Such a stigma, such humiliation. The freight of Biblical disgrace. One of those moments pinned in my memory that I creep up on—and so want to relive, to stop, keep my foot from that unbalanced slide and walk on.
Like most of my peers, I will not leap again. I will not feel that magic, untethered physical joy of taking air and spinning as our rabbits used to do. But I’ll try to remember the sensation of trusting my body, the universe to hold me safely.
If ever I doubt the power of words, I need only look at the weight that this four-letter one holds! ©
