Approaching the Edge
A few weeks ago I was in a donut shop downtown when I attempted to sit on a flimsy metal legged chair that went skiing across the smooth concrete floor. I missed the chair entirely and went crashing down. To say it was painful is an understatement. I knew right away that I was not broken, but at the same time, I felt the best thing to do was to lay there for a little while to let the pain ebb.
Other customers were coming in and going out, expressing concern, so I called out, “I’m okay.” Which I generally was. Generally. So, people stepped over and around me while somewhere above me, I could hear my husband ‘directing traffic’ so to speak.
Eventually, I made my way over to a sofa and put my head between my knees. Voices were growing distant and foggy and nausea tumbled up close to my throat. Sweat rained from my lowered face onto the floor. Someone brought a cold bottle of water which I put against the back of my neck, and then little by little began to sip.
When I was finally able to hobble out the door, my husband realized he had not brought his glasses, so he could not drive. All I had wanted to do was crumple up on the backseat though even that hurt. Instead, I gritted my teeth and braced myself to drive home via the interstate. Hallelujah for Tylenol in the glove box!
The dreaded fall. Am I an oldster? I worried. Is this the fall they warn about? It sure felt like it.
A friend called about a week later asking if I wanted to go hunt mushrooms with her. It had been raining so much that chanterelles were popping up in the woods. I had to hesitate, thinking, how smooth is the trail? Something I have never in my life given much thought to. But, I had been literally laying around for days (reading and finishing the 750 page novel Covenant of Water), bending by bracing myself against my own knees, walking with so much hesitation I felt like I was 95 years old. Once out in the woods, I found I was able to manage the unpredictable roots and slight inclines and bend slowly, slowly to gather a basket full of mushrooms.
I remembered my father fell while fishing in the Gulf. He said he had decided that was the last shore fishing he would do. He was alone and had struggled to get up and out of the water. It frightened him. In the future, he didn’t want to be swept into the sea.
My mother has had several episodes where she has blacked out and fallen, bruising herself quite badly. She’s become careful to walk where there will be others about. During my painful weeks of heating pad and medication, I thought about this a lot. I wondered if I had reached the edge of effortless movement.
The next week, my son invited me out to hike and swim. He is, like me, an avid outdoors person. To have to think about the difficulty of the trail vs. my ability was disheartening. Neither the hike for mushrooms nor the hike to this swimming hole were anything I actually consider a “hike”--more like rambling through woods. But, because of this injury, I had to think twice.
The trail was flattened by use, mostly level until the end, which was a long series of stones wedged into the earth like uneven steps. It presented no problems for me, and my confidence grew. Once at the river, we decided to wade across the shallows and set up on the opposite side from where most people had their towels and snacks. My balance was off, of course, as I was still shielding--even unconsciously--my injury. I went down after stepping on a moss slippery rock. Luckily I only got wet, none of my body hit any part of the rocks. My knees had buckled, but I remained on my feet. But I felt, once again, like an oldster, falling down, needing a helping hand. I wondered again, am I an oldster? Too old for the outdoors?
Already?
The best part of the swim is a massive pool of very deep tranquil water. There are little shallow upstream parts, like where I fell, but most people jump off the surrounding cliffs into the big pool. Athletic or particularly daring people (my son and his friend) jump off the highest ledges. Some even do backflips. Getting yourself into and out of this big pool is exhilarating and dangerous. Similar to the experience of a rollercoaster, you see that everyone around you survives the challenge, so it is encouraging that you will survive too. Except, I felt as I watched children and teenagers jumping in, aiming their bodies away from the edge where you could see fat slabs of rock, I was kind of old. In spite of years of tai chi and qi gong, I had somehow succumbed, been foreshortened by a fall.
Ultimately, I decided that I wasn’t going to go all the way there and not jump in and swim in that glorious natural pool! The edge I chose to leap off was the smaller one, maybe ten or twelve feet high, like jumping off the roof of a house. The fall wasn’t a long one compared to the other cliffs, so I hit the water before I had time to feel unhinged from the earth or think too much about what I was doing. What a thrill to plunge into the deep, cold water! I was aware before jumping, and later, while swimming the substantial distance across the water to the shore, that I was not operating physically at one hundred percent. It was a challenge to maneuver through wild waters where sometimes a giant stone rose up, where my feet never had a moment to touch the bottom and rest, where intermittent cold currents hinted at the water’s depth. As I reached the shore and began to negotiate my way out of the water, I realized that my vulnerabilities were different from the young girls ahead of me clambering over jagged, slick, uneven stone. Their main concern was about their swim suits sliding off.
If I went back to the river today, I would be much more assured (though not unafraid) of jumping in. I am not in pain anymore and have resumed my regular activities. I spoke with someone who said of my weeks of physical limitation that I “allowed my body the opportunity to heal.” I thought that was a great phrase even though I hadn’t been at all as charitable with myself as that sounds. I was angry and frustrated and frightened. Certainly, the experience reiterated to me the importance of appreciating and caring for my physical health. Yes, I’m older and am still going to go slower than I used to around slippery or uneven rocks, and when I pull out a chair I bet I will be more likely to check that it stays put before I sit down.