Oops, Ouch, Ohhhh!

Several of you have asked me what I have learned as I travel. I can report that I've learned to accept kindnesses, how not to dwell in disappointment, and that my attraction to younger men has not waned. But one lesson has been a particularly painful (literally!) one -- I've finally accepted that I am a klutz.

At first, I thought this was just a function of travel, of being overly tired, or in new situations. But as I've thought about it, I've always been this way. For example, in the last home I had, I was lucky enough to have a fireplace. And each time I made a fire I banged my head on the overhanging mantel as I stood up, even when I reminded myself not to! I often have bruises of unknown origin (as I was writing this, I was sporting a perfectly circular one on my bicep) and I have several scars on fingers from kitchen knife incidents (just got another cut a couple of days ago!). Just recently I banged my head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet door and had a huge lump for days. I am not an accident waiting to happen; I am an accident happening.

The curious thing about this is that I am an incredibly graceful dancer. When dancing I flow, I fly, I ripple. So why can't I apply the same grace to everyday motion? I guess I am the Mel Torme of movement. (Note to readers too young or foreign born to get this reference: Mel Torme stutters when he talks, but sings beautifully.)

What also comes to mind is Jame Fixx, the guru of jogging for fitness sake, who dropped dead, at too young an age, while doing so. Detractors made great fun of this ironic turn of events, but the more thoughtful pointed out that perhaps without the jogging he might have died even earlier! Thus I am left to wonder that if I hadn't started dancing shortly after walking, what kind of self-inflicted harm I'd be doing.

Ever since the Toe Incident, I think I can now appreciate how elderly people who've had a fall might feel -- the next fall is just around the corner. Thus, I've become a pathetic Walter Mitty who, instead of imagining great deeds, imagines tripping, stubbing, konking, banging, and falling. At the top of each staircase I have a flash of falling down it. At one hostel, this fear was not unfounded as I repeatedly tripped over the same stair tread and finally had to pause each time I arrived at that step and discuss with myself how to safely go down it.

And the clumsiness is not just limited to hurting myself. I note that I regularly knock things over, spill things, stain my clothing, and catch my butt on protruding things. But let me have one moment of pride -- amazingly, I do not wreck cars.

Speaking of clumsiness, allow me to present the Broken Toe Update (with apologies to Sting):

Every step you take, Causes me to quake, Cuz my toe you'll break, With more pains and aches, I'll be watching you.

The toe has healed. It was sore and taped to the toe next to it for about 8 weeks (perhaps longer than necessary, but I was so paranoid). My usual daydreams of things-I-wish-I'd-said, of suppressed outrageous behavior, or of a clear complexion were replaced with imaginings of the multiple ways my toe could be reinjured. I saw my toe banging into the brick holding the bathroom door open, catching on the metal edge of an ashtray on the ground, hooking onto the loop of a picnic table support, and always, constantly, being stepped on by other feet. And ironically, when I finally released the toe from its tape bondage and decided to put it up on a chair where it would be safer, I accidentally caught it on the chair leg on the way up!

I developed several survival techniques whenever I thought my toe might be endangered. I'd sit on the right side of the bus so the toe would be against the wall. I'd put my pack on the ground in front of or beside it (the Barrier Method). The Tuck-Away was another favorite; I stick the foot under a low table, under a sofa, under shelving units.

When standing in a line I usually employed The Wrap where the injured foot was wrapped around the back of the healthy one.

The technique that best protected in a moving crowd was The Stork where, if threatened, I bent my knee and lifted my foot off the ground faster than you can say "Stomp!"

The closest I came to being crushed was, not surprisingly, at the four day East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival in Byron Bay, Australia. But the worst danger was not as much on the ground as it was when I found an elevated point in the main music tent on which to stand so as to avoid the hordes gathered to see Ben Harper. I was delighted to find this spot (which took amazing strategy on my part, by the way) as much for being short as for the toe's protection. Yet I had to be constantly vigilant -- people with backpacks leaning against it, drunken dancers who kept falling into it.

The moment at which I knew it was really healed was when I was enjoying a traditional Thai massage in Bangkok the other day. As the woman began to crack each toe on my right foot, before I could tell her, "NOT the little one!", (which she wouldn't have understood anyway), she pulled it, and to my surprise, instead of coming off in her hand, it just cracked like the others.

And now, with it completely healed, I've taken to believing that I need various talismans to protect me from further harm. I wear the same cystal necklace each day even though I never put stock in that sort of thing (and even though I was wearing the damn necklace when I broke the toe in the first place!). When I was trying to decide which Maori T-Shirt to buy, the woman who owned the store decided that I should get the one with the Lizard on it because it stood for protection. I will take all the help I can get! So, if there is a patron saint of the Clumsy, please light a candle for me!

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