My Life as a Klutz

I'll let you in on a little secret ... I have a history of being a complete and utter klutz. Shall I count down some of the more famous falls in my life??

• The time I slipped on some wet leaves in front of the library at Lewis & Clark College, and slid right into a jagged boulder that was there for ornamental purposes but ended up gouging a huge hole into my knee which left a scar that's still quite prominent 14 years later (wow I'm old).
• The time I fell down the stairs at my brother's house in Holland (it had these teeny tiny steps) on my first day of a 2 week vacation and ended up with my leg elevated and/or limping around not seeing the sights for most of that time.
  
• The time I was enjoying an outside liturgy at a parish Young Adult Retreat and accidentally stepped into a ditch in the ground during the sign of peace wrenching my knee and having to stay an extra night so I could drive home.
  
• The time I was picking up 5 gallons of vegan soup to serve at a diocesan peace & justice retreat (a good story that's worth telling in full but I'll save that for another day), missed the big step down on my way out of the restaurant and fell face forward, somehow managing to lightly place the soup on the ground before collapsing myself to the amazement of passers by.

And these are just the highlights. You can't take me anywhere! Generally I am less of a klutz than I used to be. I've been working on developing a better sense of balance. Plus, my father suffered a very serious brain injury as a result of one of his own falls so I know it can be dangerous.

For the most part I'm very "good at falling," managing to catch myself or fall in such a way as to not cause major damage. You might ask why I am telling you all of this!

Well, we have a not so small step down from our dining room to the kitchen here at the house. It's a famous step - one of the Sisters back in NJ even warned me about it when she found out I was staying here. I've been very careful to remember it's there for the more than 2 months that I have been living here ... until this morning when I gallivanted into the kitchen planning to help clean up some of the pots and pans from the dinner preparations and fell straight forward onto the VERY hard floor. No broken bones or skin. Not even a sprain. Just some very, very sore knees. Did I mention how hard the floor was??

One wonderful thing about community though is that right away one of the sisters I live with was there making me sit down. She got a cold towel for me to place on my sore kneecaps, while the other sister pulled a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer.

It's nice to have folks there to help pick you up when you fall down. And yes, you can read that in both literal and figurative ways!

And that my dear bloggy friends is an insight into my life as a klutz. ;)