Learn How To Fall - Part II

Chocolate promotes bone density... doesn't it?
Photo by Kim Clark 

By the time you realize you're about to fall, you're on the ground. Gravity works faster than you can comprehend.

I was walking west on College Street, crossing at the corner of Grace Street. It was cold. I had my hands in my pockets and my mind on ...

Shit! I tripped! 

I landed on my knees (oh god, not again), and then my hands (that's not good), and then (good lord, not my chin) my chin. I'd gone down on the pavement like a grey-haired, sixty-five-year-old sack of potatoes.

Some readers of this blog know I fall a lot. It's a skill I've acquired to stand right back up, shaken but unscathed, when I gracelessly lose the fight with gravity. 

But the clock's running on my luck. Each time I fall (last time was in Pittsburgh) I wonder if this will be the time when the stranger who stops to help me has to call 911.

The stranger this time was a young man walking east at the same intersection.

"Are you all right?" he asked me as I curled from a prone to a fetal position in the middle of the road. 

I wasn't sure of the answer, so said nothing.

"Are you all right?!?" he asked again. 

Still taking stock, I managed a small whimper.

"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?!??" 

I wanted him to stop interrogating me. I needed every available brain cell to figure out if I was going to be able to walk away from this one. 

"I just need a moment," I said. "You're very kind to help."

He stayed with me while I gathered myself, so as to fend off careless motorists, and to get my literal on the street opinion of the state of my own health.

I did feel injured - my knees, my right hand - but not so badly that I couldn't take it from there on my own.

I sat up and gave him my arm so he could help me stand. 

That's when I looked him in the eyes. They were a clear, pale blue. A mask covered the rest of his face. I said "Thank you." 

I still went to the yoga class where I was headed when gravity turned against me. But rather than walking, I rode the street car home.

72 hours after the fall, my right hand's a colourful array of bruised flesh and my knees are a little sore.  

Right as rain, then, until the next time.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

An extravaganza from Canadian chocolatiers:
Purdy's and SOMA. Nuts and dried fruit by Bulk Barn.