tumbling is not falling
I am tumbling. Not falling. No, falling is more uncontrollable, no contact with anything, just an extended drop into…what? It’s not falling once you land. Tumbling is like rolling down the grassy hill at recess during the fifth grade, when you would sit at the top and then roll yourself sideways down the slope, usually staining the knees of your blue-jeans green, much to the dismay of your mother, who eventually stopped trying to scrub the grass-stains out. The main difference is that back then, when nothing was overly important, it was fun, and now it’s not. Now, it’s like I was sitting there at the top of the slope and some greasy-haired sixth grade boy ran up from behind and pushed me so I tumbled head over heels and maybe lost a sandal in the process. Maybe I could stop, maybe I could overcome the momentum. It’s probably possible. Or maybe I’ll just keep rolling. I’m hitting objects: rocks, sticks, clumps of grass that have somehow survived the long dry summer, pieces of reality slapping me randomly but often. When you’re tumbling, you can’t forget about what you’re hitting, or where you’ll end up, because you know that somewhere the hill must level off. The question is this: do you ride it out, let fate or chance or destiny or whatever take control, or do you pick something to hold onto and decide that enough is enough?
I haven’t figured that out yet, so, for now, I’m just going to tumble. We’ll see how it goes…
