On Falling Down Stairs . . .

. . . I much recommend walking.

The reason for this logic rests in the body’s overall well-being when walking as opposed to falling. Generally, you are not as obviously at the mercy of gravity’s sadistic side. You put one foot, then the other. You get no bruises. There’s not a moment of airborne contortion, feet scrambling for that step, arms grasping at the rail. You don’t hurt all over. Your ribs, toes, ankles, hips, knees, rib cage, elbows, shoulders, neck, back, butt and thighs do not all cry at once. You don’t break anything. Or cut yourself.

Hey, I didn’t break anything!

9 years in this home. No falls. Last night, at 1am, I’m creeping down the steep steps plenty to tell the two sweetie girls they can NOW go to bed. Two hours previous? Mango butter on the feet. They were smooth. They were happy. Now they are sore. All I can say? Don’t try walking down steep steps in the night when that particular brand of mango butter has left a slick dry veneer on your feet. It’s probably not even good for you anyway. That’s what I get for venturing away from my organic stuff.

I ventured pretty damn far. And this photo shows half the stairway.

I needed a sign, anything, something:

So much for psychic skill, precognition and even the forecast for the next 8 months telling me that I’m more likely to get significantly ill and/or have a serious accident. Brezsny doesn’t give this type of information. He wants us to wait for the conspiracy of good things. But I was warned. I read the forecast. It influenced me. I decided NOT to ride the waves at the beach when those fierce forces create the cross currents that sweep giants away. The toughest out there had decided to lay low. And I’ve been less redheadish with my driving. But mango butter and carpeted stairs?!

I fell years and years ago on steep steps with an infant in my arms. My daughter. I learned that the instinct to protect contorts the body into totally different reactions. I didn’t handle the fall the way I did last night. I went inward. Making gravity land me, bang me around and bringing my daughter into me like some falling engulfing blanket. She barely noticed.

This was a more violent fall. I confess to calling on Jesus rather profanely. So, perhaps I wasn’t calling. I was protesting. It turns out you can talk and hold ice packs on your numerous wounds while two animated and briefly horrified girls chatter away, getting you to reminisce about high school and even younger days when the steep hills were an invitation to risk wound for thrill on a bike accustomed to my reckless ventures. That’s it. I needed a bike for those stairs. That blue bike. My transport to heights and blurring curves soaring me painlessly through time.

Anything but mango butter. At least my feet are STILL smooth…