I’m Taking the Fall

…and hoping I can get up.

Fall is upon us. All around me things are falling. I dropped our glass coffee carafe last night. I reached for a dish towel to dry a long, rectangular serving platter. As I turned my body, the edge of the platter knocked the carafe off the dryer rack. It crashed onto the hardwood floor and splattered into a hundred pieces. Cara promptly appeared with a whisk broom and dustpan and ordered me not to move. 

This is de rigueur post-calamity protocol. She will neutralize me, insuring I will not screw up any further, then take over the clean-up. I did not object. She was calm and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. She could have squealed and yelled but instead moved purposefully to annul the damage. Gratefully, I moved toward my iPad to order a new carafe on Amazon.

She dropped the lid of our kettle this morning. Since it didn’t break, I failed to even glance. It is alarming that items are falling to the floor at an accelerating pace, including myself.

On my last cruise, there was a Q & A with all the guest entertainers on our final day at sea. Passengers could meet us and satisfy their curiosity: “Do you get a free cruise?” “How long have you been doing this?” “Is your wife okay with you being gone so much?” Answers: “Yes. 43 years. I only do 12 weeks a year and I spread them out, plus she enjoys taking a break from me dropping things.” Upon my introduction, I tripped over the lip of the stage, grabbing my assigned chair to break my fall. I wish I could say I planned it, but I’m not Buster Keaton. I embarrassedly took my seat amidst people asking, “Are you okay?”

I took my bike out for a ride last week. I’d fallen a couple of times in the past because I switched to clips instead of pedals. With the pedals reattached, I rode about a third of a mile when the left crank arm came off. I didn’t fall but I was stuck on a bike path guiding the bike with one hand and a crank arm attached to a pedal in the other. It took about a half an hour to walk home. Other cyclists passed me saying, “Are you okay?”

Instead of having the bicycle repaired, I gave it away on Craigslist that night. After all, I bought it for cheap at a garage sale 25 years ago. There are stationary bikes at my gym, and I won’t have to worry about falling or walking home and people asking if I’m okay. I mostly swim for exercise, anyway. If there is a way you can fall while swimming, I’m sure I’ll find it.

Loss of balance has taken me by surprise. As part of my meniscus physical therapy, I take turns standing on one leg. It is supposed to work my quadriceps and calf muscles, relieving pressure on my knee. You can often see me in line at the supermarket doing my imitation of a stork. I can hear people whispering, “Remember that old guy walking his bike? Well, don’t look now but he’s standing on one leg.”

So, for my own good and that of anyone in my proximity, I am determined to slow down. It beats rushing and pulling something, dropping something, or finding myself on the floor. I take my time in the shower, taking inventory of which part I’ve washed so I don’t wash it again. I double and triple check before I change lanes. I give myself an extra twenty minutes to get places. Just being real. In my youth my motto was “Go for it.” It has now been replaced with “Proceed with caution.”

Too often I hear, “He was fine. It was the fall that killed him.” I know it’s true because that’s how my mom and my father-in-law both passed. A little dementia then you don’t watch where you’re going and BAM!, on the floor unconscious. So unavoidable. I will not have my cause of death read “Couldn’t sit still.”

If I end up suffering from dementia, I want Cara to pop me some Valium, strap me into a recliner and let me watch sports all day. The only reason I would try wriggle from my manacles would be if the Giants went on a 20-game losing streak and I could not take it anymore.