200words.

I fall down a lot. I have weak ankles, and have a tendency to drag my
feet and twist them. I’ve tried to be conscious of the problem when I
walk, but I get lost in thought a lot and forget. On more than one
instance, friends have had to assist me. Once, I was walking my dog and
talking on my cell phone when I fell, and my friend had to get in her
car and drive to where I was to pick me up because I couldn’t get home.

I have twisted my ankle so many times that it has become a bit of a
joke. I’ve never broken one, though. I’m not sure what to do except
keep on falling. My body just keeps on rebelling against me.

At the end of summer the Korean Community of Greater Cleveland takes over the Brecksville Metroparks for their annual picnic/raffle/volley ball tournament.  That meant we would be missing church and I would have the entire day to run around with my friends.  

We‘d arrive and claim a picnic table in the pavilion.  Mom would start unpacking the food while dad stood with the other board members, talking loudly in Korean and looking important in his khaki shorts, suspenders, and aviator sunglasses.

I found my friends and we decided to go on a hike.  We told our moms where we were going.  They shooed us off, interrupting their jokes and gossip to quickly say “Don’t get into trouble.”  

We started for the “path” behind the swing set and the sand box.  It was so steep that climbing down the path required holding onto the anything on the way down-tree roots, branches, plants.  I went to grab a smallish looking tree root and started to climb down when it snapped.  I fell, and in the process managed to do four quick backwards somersaults and escape without any serious injury.  I stood up and pretended I had meant to do that all along.

falling makes gravity visual
gives it a picture
but is misleading
makes us think gravity is a force
rather than a tendency

(As Margaret Atwood writes in Cat’s Eye “Cordelia has a tendency to exist.”)

or at least confuses the fact that it’s a function of space
curved space

(I’m no physicist, unfortunately. I was too busy taking Fine Art as a non-vocational
course at a vocational school, or as we call it here in central Ohio, Career Center,
to take physics. Sounds vaguely distopian to me now, “Career Center.” As Ted
Knight says in Caddyshack “The world needs ditch diggers too.”)

what you see as a straight line is not straight at all
it’s a straight line in curved space
which makes it a curved line
and that’s why I love fat guys,
or rather how I love fat guys
how I fall for fat guys

(It’s like Laurie Anderson said “…over and over, you’re falling, and then catching yourself, from falling…”, or choosing not to catch yourself.)

attracted by their gravity
the curve they push in space
the dent they make
it’s like floating really fast
not down, but toward

A: (As Todd Haynes writes in Poison “Both.”)

My sister Cindy is accident prone and was always getting hurt as a child . An abridged list:

7: A tornado demolished our school. When the tornado hit Cindy’s teacher told the kids to get down. Cindy, confused, raised her hand to ask her to repeat the directions. A piece of glass flew through the air into her hand. Cut on finger.

8: My sister Michelle accidentally knocked over a boiling hot cup of tea and it fell on Cindy’s stomach. Third degree burns.

8: Cindy tried to coax a kitten out of a tree and it jumped down - onto her face. Minor scarring.

9: Cindy was playing kick ball with the neighborhood kids and caught the ball with her wrist. She came home crying and I told her if she could move her wrist it wasn’t broken - and then forcibly moved her wrist in every possible direction. Broken scaphoid bone.

10: Cindy was riding her bike along a two-lane road and was “bumped” by a passing motorist. She flew through the air and somehow (adrenaline and luck) the driver was able to stop his car, get out and catch her before she hit the ground. Minor bruising.