Asses, asses, we all fall down!
A true slip and fall story.
According to statistics, people going through divorce are more apt to have car accidents than, for example, people in general. But when I went through divorce, car accidents were not the resulting mishap. Instead, I had a series of spectacular falls. Miraculously, I never broke any bones, although my falls were circus-worthy flips up into the air with an impressive crash landing each time. I’m an old, former ballerina and could always quip — when someone was offering to call an ambulance and I was refusing — I’m okay! I still know how to land!
The first memorable divorce fall occurred when I was visiting my sister, Lizzie, in a suburb of Manhatten. I had walked up her short driveway to take the trash can out to the curb as a neighborhood man walked by. It was dusk, so I didn’t see the large beef bone that Lizzie’s dog had left in my path. On my way back down the driveway I stepped on the dog bone, turned my ankle so far over I felt some rip, flipped sideways, spun around and crashed onto the concrete, knocking the wind out of myself.
As I lay in the deepening dusk, gasping in pain and shock, I realized to my dismay that the passerby could hear my sound effects. With my face a few inches from the ground I could see, underneath the hedge, that he had turned around and was coming back. I was mortified. I don’t know why anyone should be mortified when they have innocently misstepped on a big bone in the semi-dark and wound up face-planting in the driveway, but I was. I wanted to be left alone to nurse my injuries, the greatest of which was my wounded pride.
“Are you alright? Do you need help?” The man asked with some alarm.
“I’m okay,” I said, although in between gasps it sounded more like, “I (strangulated inhalation)…’kay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, it’s okay,” I blurted, struggling for breath and courage. I held up a shaky hand to indicate, Stop. Please, go away and leave me alone. Mercifully, albeit slowly, he went away, hesitating every few feet, which I could still see under the hedge. I crawled to the back steps and hauled myself up with the aid of the back porch stair railing, then limped back inside. Lizzie brought out the brandy.
Some months later, still in the midst of the divorce and living in a carriage house, I headed out the door one dark, winter dawn to take my car to be serviced. Not seeing the black ice on the steps, I slipped, grabbed the partial, inadequate railing with my right arm, yanked my shoulder muscles, and crash landed, sliding down the remaining, icy steps to the driveway, my right arm now feeling painfully longer than my left. It took months and some expensive medical treatment for my shoulder to straighten itself out.
That same winter I was visiting Lizzie again, and headed briskly out the door to catch a train. I had just been in California, was still wearing cowboy boots, and had forgotten that here in the northeast in deep snow slippery soles were ill advised. Once again, seconds after bidding Lizzie a cheery goodbye, I headed across the back porch, slipped on the snowy top step, flew up into the air and smashed down the remaining stairs onto the icy path below. It was only a half flight of stairs, but my fall had all the earmarks of a trampoline stunt without the trampoline. Imagine Lizzie’s surprise when, moments after seeing me walk out the door, cheerful and able-bodied, she heard an anguished moan and looked out the door to see my crumpled form at the foot of the steps. She brought out the brandy.
Much later, there was the Spectacular Sweet Potato Fall. This was not actaully a divorce fall. I had accompanied my (second) husband to a hospital for surgery, and then set off to the cafeteria for coffee once he’d been wheeled away. In the crowded hallway outside the cafeteria I was walking briskly and purposefully, until I slipped on someone’s spilled, mashed, sweet potatoes, flew up into the air and hit the floor with appalling force. Everything, even the gasps of horrified onlookers, went into slow motion. The voices became distorted baritones. Someone helped me up and the cafeteria manager came running, his first thought — Law suit! — reflected in his extremely solicitious maner. I don’t remember much else, except telling the stunned audience that I was fine, as a couple of people helped me up and I limped into the cafeteria, like Quasi Modo, to get coffee.
Falling. It happens so fast, my sister Annie once said, like being pushed by an unseen hand.
It had been a while since I’d had a spectacular fall, except for one in the driveway here in Florida as I took the dogs out for a walk and stepped on an uneven place where the pavement changes to gravel. Once again, my first reaction was embarrassment, (ego!), and I looked around to see if any of our neighbors had witnessed the ridiculous display of Olympic-worthy gymnastics which had resulted in me ending up on my stomach in the gravel, facing the wrong way. The dogs, thinking I was playing some fun, new game, gathered around, prancing, to lick my face and see what surprises would come next.
My husband said, “You move too fast! Slow down!” So, time went by and I tried to move mindfully. But then we adopted a dog who slobbers and dribbles whenever he drinks from one of the four water bowls around the house. Each time I step in his dribble, slide dangerously in my flip-flops and grab onto the nearest piece of furniture I holler, Beasley, you’ll be the death of me! This has been going on for almost eight years and at least by now I’m in the habit of watching for water on the floor and cleaning it up. But still, it’s true, as someone once said to me at a dog park in New York where I had just been knocked flat by a small pack of roughhousing canines, “Dogs are a contact sport.”
Recently, I was told that I have osteoperosis. Of course. So, please send out prayers that next time I fall I will still remember how to land, and will bounce miraculously back onto my feet, ready for the next dribble and another one of my involuntary immitations of pole vaulting.
But wait. There’s (one) more. This past winter, while trying to make sense of my home office, I opened a bottom file drawer and then turned away to focus on something else. By now, you know where this is going. When I turned back around and took a big step forward I had forgotten that the file drawer was open. I fell over it, cutting my shin and falling on my face, fortunately into the sofa day bed mattress, while slamming one knee heavily on the floor. Once again, nothing broken except a glass figurine I’d temporarily placed on the bed, which was briefly airborne and then shattered. This stunt had nothing to do with either divorce or dribbles, so I suppose I’d better slow down.
