Rising When We Fall

This is from three years ago this week, with the usual P.S. at the end. It still speaks to (and about) me. I hope it does to you, too. - Liz

Several years ago, in Florida, my sister-in-law Lynn and I were walking into Target when I tripped over a curb and went down like a tree. While I am far too fond of attention, I hate how much of it I attract when I fall down. Especially when I can't exactly get right up. Even more especially when my sister-in-law is both concerned and laughing so hard that I called her a few names before I finally did get up. 

The manager of the store came rushing out, asking if I needed an ambulance and saying I had no grounds for a lawsuit both in the same breath. Then I was laughing as hard as Lynn was. I wasn't thinking at all about a lawsuit; I was thinking about getting up and slinking away because I was humiliated. 

All this time later, Lynn can't walk into Target without laughing and every time she talks about it, I call her names again and we remember the store manager being concerned about an imaginary lawsuit.

In retrospect, I understand his concern--this is a litigious society we live in--but I'm still mildly resentful that he was making me into a bad guy simply because I was clumsy. 

When I was in the sixth grade, our teacher--the first male one I ever had--moved to sit down and missed his chair entirely, landing sitting on the floor behind the massive teacher's desk. The only part of him we could see was the top of his head with its thin graying hair. Frankly, I don't remember if anyone in the classroom showed concern before we roared with uncontained laughter or not. I think we laughed the rest of the afternoon; whenever we stopped, someone would remember and we'd start laughing again. 

It was only about five years ago that Carolyn Moon said, "Do you remember when Mr. Oren fell?" We both said we hoped he hadn't been hurt, but that didn't stop the laughter for bursting forth one more time. 

I've been at the bowling alley when a ball carried the person throwing it right down the lane with it. I may have been the bowler at some point. Sometimes memory is kind, and I don't remember doing it. 

When you're a mom and a nana and a long-time spouse, most of your fears don't involve yourself. You worry about the people you love being hurt, being sick, being mistreated, or mistreating others. You're scared when they're on the road, when they hate their jobs, when you wake up in the middle of the night with something feeling wrong. 

With that being said, I'll admit that I have reached the age of having a fear of falling that is all about me. Having done it several times--in increasingly public and embarrassing circumstances--I know I don't bounce, that even if I get right up and say I'm fine, just fine, I'm going hurt all over the next day. I know my bones are old and just looking for an opportunity to break. 

But I also know this. I know you can't let the fear of falling--or any other fear--stop the joy. Being cautious is fine, even advisable, but not if it gets in the way of laughing so hard your stomach hurts and your coffee spurts through your nose. I haven't broken any bones yet, other than my nose a few years ago--when I fell in the kitchen--so it may be easy for me to say. I admit I'm sorry about laughing so hard at Mr. Oren when he fell before knowing if he was okay.

But you know what? He was laughing as hard as we were. 

Confucius--and numerous other people--said, "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." He didn't mention laughing at the same time, but I'm sure that was just an oversight.

P. S. 2026 - When I read this again, I thought about our country. A lot about our country. I think we've fallen--far and hard. While there are a lot of people who are happy with the way things are, I feel safe in saying more of us aren't. As someone called me earlier this week when he responded to an "ignorant" comment I made on Facebook, I am an "old white liberal woman." (His right to say and pithily accurate.) As one of those, I'm grieving a lot for what I thought the USA was, for the battering down of my beliefs and standards, for what I see as the loss of truth and compassion.

It is exhausting.

Henry Diltz; Distributed by Columbia Records

Forty-one years ago this week "We Are the World" was recorded by 45 or 46 artists. It was a long and some say sappy song. It played constantly on the radio, and an arguable number of physical copies of it have sold--I read all the way from "more than 10 million" to "more than 20 million." I would be courting a lawsuit if I used its lyrics here, but if you don't remember them, the first verse says a whole lot. I hope you'll look it up.

Like so many others among us, including the ones whose beliefs and standards seem to be on the opposite side of the spinning dial from mine, I get back up. Every time. I hope our country does, too, and that it comes to its feet laughing in the face of cruelty, hate, and greed.

Have a good week. Keep laughing. Be nice to somebody.