How To Take a Fall and Keep Your Dignity

I'm in a rush as I run out the door.  It's the end of the day, end of the week and I'm getting out of the work place.  I've got a smile on my face and a heavy backpack strapped over my shoulders.  My arms are full with a stool in one hand and loose papers in the other.  Resting on my forearms a bag of fruit is balanced delicately between my biceps.  One problem, my shoelace has come untied.  I'm about to discover this in a spectacular way.  

This long strand that binds the shoe to my right foot is always coming undone.  Untethered, as I step to the Jeep the lace ends are whipping around like errant unattended fire hoses under high pressure.  They are now wedged between my left shoe and the pavement.  My right foot can do nothing but dangle motionless in the air for a fraction of a second.  An important footfall has been missed.  That's when my still moving hips tilt forward losing altitude.  My whole body starts leaning too far past my feet.  I feel like a falling pine tree cut from its roots with nothing left to do but hit the earth.  The shoe lace situation has my complete attention.

I think, “Damn shoe lace.”  Followed by,”I could die.”  The shock of being out of control makes me laugh.  I hop forward on my left leg struggling for balance and to dislodge the shoe lace.  I’m laughing, almost hysterically now, my freed right foot is moving to resume its job keeping my face off the pavement.  My shoulders lurch forward causing the heavy back pack to crash into my medulla.  Then I remember the stool and the papers in my hands. Both are hurling from my grip and away from me.  The bag of fruit shoots forward like a projectile from a trebuchet.   I arch my back and thrust out my arms to achieve some sort of desperate equilibrium.  Unfortunately I overcompensate and the weight on my back forces my shoulders to fall back and my chest to thrust forward.  With the shoe lace whipping around my ankle both legs are in steady motion as my momentum crashes forward.  I’m trying to prevent a hard fall.   I don’t know if my legs can move quick enough to regain composure and prevent a catastrophe.  They keep pumping as if they belonged to a half back breaking through a defensive line for a touchdown.  I feel the stress on my knees.

The bottom edge of the toe of my left shoe clips the quickly approaching curb.  At this point my feet are air borne.  My body is becoming horizontal.  The back pack shifts to the side which causes me to spin in midair.  My arms thrust out and upward like a rock star singing a final encore.  I’m laughing and shouting, “look out!”  I fly over the curb landing squarely on my keester.  My waist is bent 90 degrees which brings my outstretched legs up in the air above my torso and forming a “V” from my crotch to my shoes.   Spinning on my bottom in loose gravel I feel like a misguided break dancer in a rap song.  My legs and arms are still thrust out and extended apart. How can I be spinning on my butt like this?

Finally, it's all over.  In the aftermath, I look around to see if anyone was watching.   It appears no one witnessed this amazing vault into the unknown.  My back is resting on the heavy back pack.  For some reason my legs and arms are still open and extended in a “V” shape.  I'm laughing because evidently I haven’t broken any bones and I cant' figure out how to get up.  Papers are all over the pavement and the gravel.  The stool is still rolling on it's side to the lowest part of the manicured lawn in front of the hotel facade.

I decide to roll onto my stomach.  I push up with my palms and rest my bottom on my calves.  With effort I place the soul of my left shoe on the ground.  Squatting and balancing myself enough to bring the other shoe forward, I tie the miscreant lace.  With caution I stand up, dusting off my pants.  A final look around shows no one in the parking lot, but I’m hearing laughter.  Oh, it’s me laughing.  Not a soul was a witness to this mishap.

After picking up papers I corral scattered fruit back into the plastic supermarket bag.  The stool came to rest against a pine tree where I grab it.  My keys!  Where is my key chain?  It was wrapped around my right pinky.   I guess it flew out of my grasp in the mayhem. There!  A squirrel is fussing at it.  Evidently the key chain crashed into the tree trunk the little rodent was climbing.  He’s still gripping the tree and griping at the keys at the base of the tree trunk below him.  This animal is probably the only witness to my lesson in harried misdirected equilibrium.

It was a fall.  Embarrassment and feeling ridiculous is part of overcoming the event.  Falling is not a condition though it can create an affliction.  There is dignity in moving on and renewing self-respect.  I am not the fall, I am a survivor.  

I gather my things and throw them in the back of the jeep.  At last my weekend has started.