The art of falling

I'm not one that falls. Seriously, I'm just like a weeble, I'll wobble but I don't fall down. However, I love to fall... When it's choreographed (wink). It's one of my favorite things to teach in a dance class!! There is an art to the fall. One has to be willing to give into gravity and greet the earth. Doris Humphrey called it 'the arc between life and death.'

There is a moment of weightlessness before the pull of gravity takes over, and that sensation is one of the most incredible I've ever known. To have a soundless fall is glorious it is like sliding into home base only the playing field is a soothing lake of the most comfortable moss. Yummy for the body and soul!!

So, imagine my surprise when I had a doozy of a fall IN PUBLIC the other day!! Even funnier, I had just been having a visit with my family and we were talking about our dad's crowning moment of walking down in front of the coffee an and someone honking at him and he turns and waves and keeps on walking..... Right into a pole and got knocked out. We shouldn't laugh, really. But we just can't help it. It's funny. It was a family joke and ended up in charades almost as frequently as Mrs. Reed.

Well, I walk into the hotel to put up a poster for the big disco gay skate night on the 12th and I see a friend and I stop and give him a hug, the place is crowded and there is a group of beautiful ladies sitting on the other side of the lobby positioned to look at my extremely good looking friend and I turn to go after our hug and my big invisible hair gets me off balance from my swishy turn and my feet slip right up and out from under me and I slam down hard on the stairs and I try to immediately stand but the floor is wet so I have that great comedic moment of scrambling to stand like a baby deer on skates... EVERYONE is staring and I shake it off and ease out as gracefully as possible.

Usually if things happen like that, it's right after I say or think something rude, my instant karma check. That would happen to me all the time at the cafe, especially at this time of the year when I would get to that point of thinking,' if I have to be asked one more time where is the nearest ATM ' I may crack. But this day, I was floating in ease and joy. I was so happy to be wandering in the rain. Loving it! Shit happens.

I know those girls got a good giggle out of that and it probably opened the door for a more verbal flirt exchange with my super handsome friend. You are welcome.

But this fall wasn't one of my yummy falls. This one hurt, and at my age, I'm beginning to notice how I just don't bounce back as quickly as before.

It is as if the fall has me suspended in time. I'm still on the rebound and my feet will have me upright shortly and I will shimmy like nothing has happened. Right now, the sun is out and I've been sitting out back looking at how the yard has changed so much in just a few days. The wind brought down a branch, the cosmos have been knocked down, the bamboo is heavy from the rain and the prayer flags are stretched from the wind and rain their prayers being lifted and carried regardless of their appearance. And that sweet fall smell fills my entire being as the sun crosses the tree and kisses my face with sun. And I land.