spectacular falls I have taken:
age nine, in an old church choir loft during the christmas program (stepped on the front of my floor-length gingham dress and went down like a sack of potatoes in a sort of 'now you see her, now you don't' moment) (the entire congregation fought laughter and I mean, I get why but I fought real tears and delivered my lines like a true stoic and secretly despised them all for what clearly felt like betrayal)
age seventeen, on stage during a dress rehearsal of anything goes at taft theatre, downtown cincinnati (took the last high kick a smidge too high, swept my own feet out from underneath myself, went airborne for a fraction of a second before landing flat on my back with a sickening thud whilst the high kicking continued all around me) (wanted to die but popped right back up, as if internally operated by some magical animatronic machinery)
age forty-six, on a walkway crowded with tourists along the mississippi river in new orleans (stepped on the outer edge of the walkway, lost my footing while carrying a heavy backpack full of polaroid cameras and film, fought like a mother scratcher to regain balance so as not to damage said cameras which resulted in the lengthiest, most cinematic and dare I say most balletic of tumbles, really and truly, it felt like it was happening in super slow motion, like, I actually had time to think about things while I fell, A LOT of things, like, will I see this on youtube? are all my bones still intact? will I be able to walk away from this? also, why am I still falling? will I ever land? like, ever? or is this my life now?) (when I did finally land, a good fifteen feet from where I began, I prayed the earth might swallow me up but the choir loft spill at age nine had obviously prepared me and I played the whole thing off as if completely incapable of feeling and/or displaying any sort of human pain or emotion)
