fall from grace

I woke up to a text from my mother this morning. She warned me of icy, slippery roads. I smiled, accustomed to her anxiety for my well-being, and then forgot about her message as I hurriedly put on mismatched socks for the office.

And then I fell down.

(Per usual, my mother's fears were all but unfounded.)

I was having a rough day before the fall. I had come to work without make up, with a stomach ache, and in desperate need of chapstick. I found out the Pope was resigning because of waning mental energy, and felt even more disenchanted with 9-6 oblivion. I stepped outside to buy snacks (I can honestly say that I eat my feelings), and on my way back to the office, I slipped on ice and fell to my side, throwing out my left hand to catch my fall. More than pain, I was flushed with embarrassment. Some people stopped, others walked by. I quickly stood up and walked briskly back into my building, hiding my scratched up, gravel-ridden left hand into my pocket.

While I wished to burn this memory into obscurity, I have a moral obligation, a responsibility to clumsy ladies everywhere, to tell and retell the story of my antics. This is not the first time I have fallen, and nor will it be my last. In the fourth grade, I fell in the gymnasium during a relay race; in high school, I fell in the middle of a crowded hallway, amid my boyfriend's senior friends and teachers; in college, I tripped over an open drawer, and soared about two feet through the air and landed onto the hard floor on my right buttocks, after twisting my ankle. On the first day of my internship, I walked into a glass door, and when I was interviewed for a full time position, I walked in with a cane. Last Wednesday, I tripped over my own headphones, still plugged into my office computer, and then Friday, when I was cleaning a spill, I tripped over the vacuum and bruised my leg.

I tell these stories for the girls who, like me, will never be effortlessly graceful or immune to injury.  These girls are not just clumsy, but rather are women of fatal flaw, of frenzy, of flavor, and only fall because they are exploding with vitality, and are eager to say words and meet people and see the world.

And yes, in the process, these girls may get concussions.

therapy at Secaucus Junction

Secaucus Junction is the station at which all NJ Transit trains converge. Every morning, I join thousands of other commuters in the mezzanine, people teeming from all corners and spilling out of platform exits, all desperately trying (and failing) to beat the bottleneck that forms amid the finite number of automated turnstiles protecting access to the Manhattan bound trains.

This morning, right after a woman with a cane shoved me toward Sbarro, I briskly walked past the station attendant talking to a very petite woman wearing Louboutins. I was about to scan my ticket when I heard, "I know, I know, let it out sweetheart. You're fine. I'm here."

I turned back to see the station attendant stroking the woman's back, and the woman's face streaked with tears and mascara. Time stopped for them, and the two women were in an elusive nimbus, untouched by frenzied commuters.

The woman smiled bleakly back at the station attendant, nodded, regained what little strength she had left, and then walked towards the turnstile.

The station attendant yelled to her as she walked away: "Remember, honey, you're beautiful."

A mother with an infant child (most likely a Cabbage Patch Kid wrapped in a snuggie) elbowed me in the ribs and I lost sight of the woman in Louboutins and the station attendant, both of whom seemed to have vanished.