Stop. Motion. | The Fall 2020

On a hot afternoon, deep in the dog days of waning summer, I was walking to my friends’ house after my last class of the day, as I often did. I was cruising – walking fast with my book bag over my shoulder, heavy and off-center. In truth, my book bag was an over-grown, white plastic purse with twisted fake rope straps and a dirty, shapeless bottom, slung over my left shoulder like a lumpy potato sack, but it worked. In my right hand was a beloved kiwi-strawberry Snapple.

I have always walked quickly. I like the feeling of extending my legs long to cover serious ground in a hurry. It seems I’ve always been in a hurry – for what, to where I’m not sure. Chin out, eyes flashing, running ever on to some goal, driven to it. Eyes forward, I never saw the crumbling sidewalk ahead of me. Jutting up as tectonic plates thrust skyward from old roots pushing the limits of the ground and challenging the concrete, the sidewalk heaped in jagged peaks near the corner. I hit the rubble pile at full speed, no brakes. I went airborne and landed, tumbling, into the street.

There is a moment of clarity, frightening wakefulness when we fall. Even now, my sense memory takes me there. My eyes open to the sensation of hot water pouring all over inside my skin, a rush of adrenaline. I recognize my cheek is pressed against nubby, hot asphalt. I can smell and see everything all at once – oil, dirt, rubber, garbage, my own sweat. I sit up and feel dizzy, breathless, hot, like motion sickness. Now I see where I am – sitting in the street by the concrete curb. I look and realize what has happened – the obvious pointed cliffs of the broken sidewalk mock me. I feel an inside-to-outside creeping awareness. I wonder if anyone saw me and I feel embarrassment, a self-conscious flood of pity and shame. The rush of emotion ushers in the pain. I look at myself and I see my knee is bleeding, bits of crumbly asphalt stuck to it. I didn’t realize that the Snapple bottle in my hand broke my fall and shattered on the concrete. The sticky pink lemonade is spreading in the street and I’m sitting in a pool of it. There is blood. I turn my hand over and I see bits of glass sticking out of the fleshy part of my hand. I slowly pick out the glass, and with great effort, I move to stand. I feel wobbly and unsure of everything. My hip hurts. My butt is wet. I pick up my bag which has gone wandering a few feet away from the accident. I leave the broken glass and the mess and even though I don’t want to, I have a necessary cry as I limp along to my friends’ house where I find Band-Aids and sympathetic ears. Eventually, we laugh.

2020 was the ragged sidewalk. We were the self-obsessed student cruising along at top speed, engrossed in ourselves, and feeling in control. We forgot about the tangled roots underground that sprout when we least expect them. We forgot that control is an illusion. We forgot to slow down and notice where we are. We have experienced a collective brutal fall, all of us, together. We are still reeling and picking the shards from our palms. Go ahead, have the necessary cry, but get up. Keep moving. Go find your friends and tell them you love them. We will walk again. We will laugh again. But, we won’t soon forget how it feels to fall so hard and how dangerous it is to not pay attention to where we’re going.

em:me

[This is an excerpt from my collection of memoiristic essays tentatively entitled, “Geography of the Heart."]