The Willow Glen Resident

She's a trip off the old block

By Sue Fagalde Lick

"Guess what, Aunt Sue? Your niece is taking after you. She's got her own little pair of crutches."

That's the news with which my sister-in-law woke me up the other morning. She couldn't wait to tell me the klutz gene had been passed down to my namesake.

It seems little Susan sprained her left ankle sliding into second base in the very first game of softball season. I had sprained my right ankle five days earlier missing a step on the stairs down to the beach.

I had hesitated to mention my latest mishap to my ever-teasing brother, Susan's dad. After all, I was still limping from when I fell down the stairs at home last Thanksgiving. That time I sprained the other ankle and a couple fingers and dislocated my big toe.

This time, I tried to walk it off, but the foot started swelling immediately and I knew what I was in for: a trip to the hospital X-ray lab, crutches, curtailment of all activities involving feet. Adios to the camping trip we had planned.

Actually we still thought we would go. The doctor looked at me like I was nuts and said slowly, "You can't walk!"

Oh yeah. Back to camping on the couch with my foot up, asking my husband if he would please bring me a glass of water, more Ibuprofen, a magazine, the TV remote. When I started being able to put weight on my foot again, I couldn't figure out how to limp on both feet at once.

It was my fourth time on crutches. There was the torn ligament coming out of the movies in 1978, the foot broken when I slipped on a swimming pool deck on vacation in 1989, the dislocated toe in 1996, and now this. That doesn't even count the two toes I broke running into furniture, the shoulder I sprained when I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk.

Klutz is a Yiddish word meaning "clumsy." Webster's defines clumsy as lacking dexterity, nimbleness or grace. Not very flattering, but accurate. I'd like to blame my bifocals. When I look down, I can't figure out where stairs are. But I've been tripping on stuff all my life. We won't even talk about the times I didn't get hurt badly enough to go to the doctor.

So why does this happen? Is my brain in one place and my mind in another? Perhaps I need to get on friendlier terms with my body. As a writer and musician, I spend all day doing things that don't have much to do with this flabby shell in which I dwell. But then, if I met this body on the street, would I want to get to know it? I'd say, "Lose some weight, do something with that hair, stop walking like a dork, then we'll talk."

OK, so what can I do? Practice yoga, swim, jog? Get into my skin, so to speak? Or get used to spending weekends at the emergency room? Perhaps I need to accept that when you walk with your head in the clouds, you're bound to run into something.

My poor niece is like me in too many ways. The same eyes, same hairdo, same glasses, same love of books and movies. We're both left-handed. And of course she's using my old name. Does she have to be like me in this, too? Perhaps it was just a one-time sports injury that will never repeat itself, but it doesn't bode well. Susan is only 9.

At least now I have someone to leave my crutches to when I die.

Sue Fagalde Lick is a regular contributor to the Willow Glen Resident.

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