I am one of the clumsiest people in the world.
I have no conception of my body in space. This combined with my living completely in my head (instead of in the ‘now’) and my strange occasional muscle spasms make for problems.
The women in my family bruise easily–and I usually have several of them in various stages of healing. Every day sees me hitting my elbow on a Simpsons‘ shelf, hitting my forehead on the counter as I bend down to wipe up a spill, hitting my shoulder with the top of my car door, hitting my thigh on my desk corner, etc.
I keep arnica cream, made from a flower that helps with bruising, in my office, my home, and my car.
Slightly less often come the burns–my hands don’t understand how close an oven part is to them any more than how close the counter is.
Surprising thought it is, I have not yet broken a bone (except perhaps a tailbone a few years ago when I fell down a flight of stairs). I twist ankles and sprain things, but I have not yet had to wear a cast.
I break dishes instead. And wine glasses. And full jars I’m taking out of the cupboard to use for dinner.
Roomba (aka Sisyphus) has a lot to do in my kitchen.
I don’t know what my students think when I routinely smash myself against the lectern or when chalk flies out of my hand.
They, unlike my son, don’t give voice to the thought: but you were just holding that!
Sometimes, I just want to play a certain Simpsons scene with a certain waiter:
All I can hope for is a man like John Frederick Nims, the author of “Love Poem”:
My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing
Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.
Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers’ terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before apoplectic streetcars—
Misfit in any space. And never on time.
A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease;
In traffic of wit expertly maneuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.
Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gaily in love’s unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of split bourbon float.
Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses—
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.
