A Kick in the Common Sense

fig. one

As a writer, I tend to live in my head, hearing conversations that will never happen. The situation doesn’t make me more observant, only more vulnerable. Growing more…ahem…mature, I’m gradually pulling away from the expectations I once imposed on myself. Who cares? is one of my favorite thoughts these days—especially as I lose respect for the people elected to power by the majority. (I just read that Americans come in at 36^th in literacy among industrialized countries, and they’re being encouraged to read less. Oh great.)

I worked hard for most of my life trying to raise the awareness of students who would become the electorate. The evidence suggests my efforts came to naught. However, Nature apparently didn’t approve of my current defensive withdrawal from the fray, so when I tripped on a rock and fell from my normal woodland path, I not only injured my knee on a rock, but also fell on prickly pear cactus.

Falling is a humiliating experience any time in your life but especially when you’ve left the age of 70 in the rear view mirror. If you fall after 60, anyone who hears your story nods knowingly—assuming without question that you’ve lost your balance—perhaps a first step toward losing your mind. Of course, you haven’t necessarily lost your balance. You’re just clumsy. I was clumsy when I was young—often falling up stairs—and I still am.

Being injured so that my knee looked like the elephant bulge inside THE LITTLE PRINCE’s boa constrictor made my temporary disability worse. I needed a cane to walk for a day—a cane saved from my husband’s grandfather. Luckily—or not, depending on your point of view—my husband and I have sustained several minor injuries over time so we were well equipped with a tens machine, a heating pad, red light therapy, and various concoctions that claim to lesson pain. I was hobbling without a cane by the end of the day.

The next day I had progressed enough that my husband suggested I soak in a hot bathtub of Epsom Salts (magnesium being one of those pain relieving concoctions), so I did. The only problem was, I hadn’t planned a method for climbing back out of the dated glass enclosure. I had dropped into the tub with an enormous plop, not being able to use the leverage of both legs to make my descent gentler. When I decided to exit, I discovered my butt was hermetically sealed to the bottom of the tub. I couldn’t pivot. I had become akin to those window decorations held in place with suction. With only one functional leg and no mobility, I was stuck. I called for my husband. My dog fetched him for me as I waited for jokes that wisely never happened.

After I had been rescued, I asked my husband to let me know what the smarting was in the back of my “good” leg. It felt like a scab. No, it was a fat cactus spine—an inch long—embedded in my thigh (see fig one). And it hurt. I didn’t know cactus spines grew so large. It felt even bigger. Again, my husband came to my aid, grinning that I had discovered what a real pain in the ass looks like.

Flash forward a couple days when I was walking fairly normally—except for steep downhill steps which I avoided. My husband, a hero at all times, noticed red spots on the back of my leg as I was dressing for bed. “What are they?” I asked, dreading the answer: eight more cactus spines that my husband hadn’t seen previously because of eye surgery.

The moral of the story is don’t take yourself too seriously. Life has a way of calling you to account no matter what people around you say. As a lone teacher, I was no match for the long-term propaganda machine that convinced my students to believe the unbelievable. (A woman in the grocery just insisted federal employees—supposedly including park rangers, scientists, and air traffic controllers—just shirk from home and deserve to be cut.) I’d like to tell my students now, don’t be afraid to change your mind when you hear a more cogent argument than the one you swallowed. Be true to yourself and the kind of person you want you to be. When you follow without question, you disappear into someone’s shadow. And watch where you’re going in life to make certain you aren’t setting yourself up for a humiliating fall with no one to come to your aid. It smarts on several levels.