HUBRIS
The morning was sweet and misty, the crisp of autumn whispering on the skin as we set out for our 2 mile walk; part of our new regimen to gain all available strength and vigor for our remaining years. In silence, our footfalls carry us over the stony road, the hills all soft and lush in browns and greens and ochers; moist voluptuousness all around, a thousand cobwebs beaded with dew clinging to every weed and bush; a jeweled lace tatting the landscape.
On the return we pick up speed, pushing against the desire to slow, legs striding, muscles pumping, breath a little harsh. What joy to be alive on such a day, what luck to be so young this old. The day spreads before us with promise. Finally we’ll be going into the studio we’ve been waiting to create in; 18 months of roofing and new doors and the eternal bureaucratic wait for electricity. I envision the canvas stapled to the old wall, the first paint-laden brush smacking against it as, finally, I enter the waiting rocks and boulders of my imagination.
Sure thing. Sure footed. Me, fooled by the step, my shoe catching it on the way up, the fall fast and treacherous, fingers of the left hand snapped backwards in futile effort to catch the rest of me, the right knee a full-on dreadful hit, the awful sound, the unnatural position of body parts, a bounce of the head on stone, the scream for help and ice, nausea rising up to meet the pain and I pass out.
What was that I wrote in the last post? Something about the folly of being human; of making plans. Oh reckless gamble; place your bets ladies and gents, red or black? Pain or gain?
And so another incident stitches us into the cloth of this foreign land. But life is not a perfect tapestry and you ain’t tried nothing until you’ve tried communicating with ambulance attendants, emergency room staff, a radiologist and the orthopedic specialist with language that at the best of times is second rate. In a crisis, where pain and fear are taking up equal space, my Italian warps and garbles, a kaleidoscopic taffy stretched beyond its limit. Yet miraculously, meaning is conveyed, as when listening to opera or poetry the music and rhythm and mystery are made clear on some alchemical level. This language will never be mine, but I will sing it forever.
As tragedy is filled with the comedy of errors, this event is no different. An emergency room attendant, more embarrassed than am I, mis-places the bedpan and I piss all over the gurney. The radiologist bangs my broken hand while trying to position my injured leg. The verdict is in: broken base joint of pinky and metatarsals of the left hand; right kneep-cap fractured in two places. Both put in casts – the leg from thigh to ankle. I will be unable to walk for a month.
Five hours after the fall I am wheeled to a waiting taxi where it takes four of us to figure out how to get me onto the back seat. I’m exhausted. Who isn’t? I lean back against the door just as Joel opens it from the outside, catching me as I start to fall backwards. I’m pissed, hungry, thirsty and frightened and can’t wait to get home. So of course the taxi breaks down halfway there, 50 feet from a Nissan dealership. What are the odds of 2 men putting 2 and 2 together? “I’ll call you another taxi,” the driver says. I’m staring at the steering wheel, it says Nissan. “Ahem,” say I, the dreaded backseat driver. I point to the dealership sign. The penny drops; a mechanic is summoned. He tweaks something under the hood and we’re good to go.
I do wish we had a video of the maneuver from taxi to bed, Joel walking backward carrying my plaster casted leg, my left arm with its casted hand around the driver’s neck, the other arm around Vincenzo’s, the 4 of us trying to get through the front door and getting stuck, “After you,” “No, no after you.” Already these scenes are part of the script that will be cause for laughter once they reside in memory lane. And so it goes; pain, tears, hilarity, fear, frustration. Black humour this. Right leg immobilized. Left hand immobilized. Counterbalance out of the question. Hundreds of automatic, habitual movements now impossible to make.
Joel and I plot maneuvers like commanders in a war room: from bed to wheelchair to toilet to wheelchair, to couch to wheelchair to patio for a moment of sun, a glimpse of the evil step, the garden in full September splendor, then wheelchair to bed, oh blessed bed. Flat on the back for 8 hours, mouth agape, leg and hand a-throb and yes, I succumb, I’ll take the painkiller, a moment of bliss between pain and sleep.
In the morning the sun comes in the window lifting my spirits, filling me with gratitude. It comes and goes, the gratitude. 70 is 70 even if it’s a fit 70. Time is short and some precious drops of it must now be spent in slow motion. I am not a patient person. But I remember the slow time of the broken neck and so I know there are gifts to be had. I’m re-learning what I learned then; that pain doesn’t kill you; that it is useless to try and skip over it. The secret is to slip down below it and rest there in the dark quiet of trust and surrender. There, where the landscape is filled with illuminated fragility; the dew-beaded cobwebs holding on for dear life.
