"The most important thing in life is learning how to fall." Jeanette Walls.
I'm not sure Jeanette meant that literally, but it is the perfect quotation for this post
So this post is about falling.
Who knew that would be the theme of the last month in our family.
First Arta took a tumble moving rocks. Fractured her humerus.
Then Rebecca took a tumble in a parking lot while trying to get Arta back to Victoria to convalesce. Fractured her wrist.
I'm never one to miss a party, so naturally, I decided to follow suit and wiped out on my stairs.
Here is my story because I have not yet learned how to fall. I hope I learn the correct way soon before I too break a bone.
Friday night (January 9th, 2021) I had just finished reading a chapter of Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix to Hebe. We had just learned a new word--BUTTOCKS. Hebe had never heard that word before and laughed hard when she got the joke. Mad-eye Moody cautioned Harry not to put his wand in his back pocket or he might lose "half of his buttocks". After we finished reading, I walked down the stairs--these very stairs in the photograph above--to watch a movie with Catie and Eric. However, as I rounded the corner, I slipped. Everyone came running as they heard the crash. I landed with my right buttock on the edge of a stair. In fact on the edge of this very stair.
My two elbows and left heel took the rest of the weight of my fall. I lay still for a moment trying to decide if something was broken. I knew immediately my right buttock was going to turn black and blue. After deciding it was safe to move, Eric helped me to the couch and Catie brought 3 ice packs--one for my right buttock and one fore each elbow.
It is Sunday now and the bruise is just starting to take shape. It forms a linear line across my right mid-buttock. I made Rebecca take a photograph of it, but she cautioned me it might be seen as "soft porn" if I share the entire photo which includes a bit of buttock cleavage. It is pretty ugly looking for day 2.
You can definitely see the edge of the stair imprinted on my buttock. I guess this is what Mad-eye was talking about. Hebe has had no end of laughter reminding me about Mad-eye's caution.
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| ... day four of the bruising .... ... Catherine wonders if she will need a transfusion ... |
I'm a bit sad about reaching the age where one starts falling again. The return to toddlerhood has begun. Well, all I can say is that I am in good company with Arta and Rebecca. I wouldn't include any of us in the category of people that have learned how to fall well. I give thanks however that when I fell, I at least landed on a fleshy cushion which protected me from joining the fracture club. I guess there is some truth to the saying that as you age, carrying a little extra weight can actually be protective.
For those of you who have learned to fall well, please leave messages for us in the comment section with any tips you can offer.
Stay well everyone, and may next month's theme not involve falling or broken bones.
Catheriine
Catherine, I read your blog post once, afraid of what the next sentence was going to reveal, and on finishing it, I settled down to a close re-read of every sentence.
ReplyDeleteSometimes like a picture, every sentence can be like 1,000 words (when I fill in what is left unspoken). I don’t know Jeannette Falls whom you quote so I took a visit to Wikipedia to learn about her and then I went to you tube: Jeannette Walls Talks about “The Glass Castle”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iPaktkrPdw). I always have a pen beside me. I heard two other beautiful quotes in that interview: “We shape our lives by which stories we tell and how we tell them”, and “Every time I step in the shower and turn on the hot water, I am astonished”. Those quotes were worth the 17 minutes of the interview, plus I got to hear and see the Jeannette Walls in an interview. Yay me!
I wonder how you came to know this author?
I would like to thank you for the pictures of the stairs in your house, ones I have run up and down myself. I have a turn like yours on the stairs in my house at the lake – a turn that positions me to a 90 degree angle from where I have come. I always think it is the trifocal lens in my glasses that makes me grab and tightly hold an possible bannister when I go down stairs now.
You ask for messages about falling. My best strategy is to always hold a bannister. That act has saved me from many a fall – I get a wrenched wrist, but that has been well worth the save from many a fall. I am not sure you have a bannister at the top of your stairs – but there is a good one on the last stretch of the stairs going down.
Thanks to Rebecca Rose for the picture of your anatomy. I wanted to show pics of my anatomy, -- everywhere where there were black and blue marks but I was prevented from showing them by those wiser than me. In my case, a good thing for I was on T-3’s, and experience has taught me I don’t make good decisions when I am on drugs.
How are your knees and your heel? Any soreness around them. Since the bruises are apparent on your buttocks; what I guess is Mad-Eye Moody’s caution about losing (bruising) half of the buttocks is too late for you. I assume that there is a certain amount of buttock tenderness which you can winge about with no judgement from me.
So glad you are alive and well and able to report on you slip on the stairs.
Catherine, when I read your blog post to Rebecca she was immediately reminded of the lyrics Javert sings in the song, "Stars" from the musical, "Les Mis":
ReplyDelete"And if you fall as Lucifer fell, you fall in flames. And so it must be, for so it is written, on the doorway to paradise, that those who falter and those who fall must pay ..."
Of course she didn't say it, but sang the lyrics ... sotto voce. I wish you could have heard it.
I have fallen a lot in many different countries. So happy my bones have not yet broken with the falls. Stay away from the Johnsons or do not travel with them because you may have to pick them up from the ground.
ReplyDeleteI have seen you take terrible falls or slides. Remember the one where you slid down an embankment when we were walking on the far west side of the property. That was a killer.
ReplyDeleteAnd what about the one in Spain where passers-by called an ambulance. You weren't having any of that -- left behind while the cruise ship sailed. No, you hobbled back and survived yet another crisis. You are older now. Please hold tightly to the bannister while going down your basement stairs.