Today, I fell.
I parked off-campus, a bit far, thinking I needed some exercise. Since I try to bring lunch every day now, I had bought a lunch bag at Target, of a size that can fit a tupperware, an apple, and a water bottle. I held it with my left hand as I got off the car and started to walk. In my right hand was my cell phone. I was trying to check the voicemail. Then the tip of my new shoes, the left one, stumbled on a bump on the asphalt, and I fell.
I rolled onto the ground in slow motion, like an action hero, trying to save my head from hitting the asphalt with my right arm while keeping the cell phone firmly in my hand, and to save my lunch bag because it was minestrone and I didn't want to spill it all over.
I lay there, and looked around. Nobody seemed to have seen me trip. It's kind of nice. No embarrassment. But kind of not nice. Nobody came running to help me up. So I got up on my own. I looked at my right hand. The lower part of my palm and the back of my middle and ring fingers were scratched and bleeding. Other fingers escaped injury. I looked down. A big rip on my left knee--on the H&M jeans I'd just bought. Okay, they were on sale. They cost only $19.99. But it doesn't mean they can be ripped on the second day I wore them. And don't jeans in general have more endurance? It's not like I gave a big diving. Not only the jeans, but my skin was ripped. I could see red in the hole. Red and indigo blue of the jeans rubbed into cuticles.
I had no emergency kit, so I went back to my car, drove to somewhere closer, went to the bathroom to wash and wipe the wounds, and went to class late with the rip. At work, Kathy gave me mother-ly comfort and treatment with a big band-aide. Everybody who noticed the rip or I told the story to looked shocked and, at the same time, almost amused. "Are you okay?" they asked. I was. It hurt a little, but I could walk no problem. But I was mentally affected by the fall. Like my friends, I was shocked, and amused.
It's been more than a decade since I last fell. At least this hard. I hadn't seen what's under my skin for a long time, the redness and wetness, how dirt and fabric gets into it. I hadn't experienced the moment of losing balance and the world turning up-side-down around you before you knew what was going on but with your body already reacting somehow. It felt like a new experience. That newness was what shocked and amused me.
Grown-ups don't fall, and--have I ever thought about this?--I'm a grown-up!
