Tripping Or Falling

I fell out of my wheelchair yesterday.

It was my first involuntary, non-dance related fall in perhaps a year.  I was completely unprepared both for the mechanics of the fall and the lingering sense of dislocation in my body (figurative, not literal).  On one side of the street, the kerb cut functions as it is supposed to.  But yesterday, I couldn't find parking there.  So, I parked on the side of the street where there is a crack just at moment where you would come down the kerb cut and hit the concrete slabs of the road.  The crack is triangular and big enough and deep enough to ensnare a caster.  I know this.  And after a couple of near misses, I have become quite skilled at not tripping up.

Yesterday, I was carrying a suitcase on my lap; I balanced my boots and a bottle of water on top of the case.  I was moving swiftly and fluently; I glided down the cut; I reminded myself about the crack.  I knew something was wrong when I felt my chair rise, my suitcase slip.  I heard the case hit the ground and felt myself arc in the air.  For a second, I pictured myself rolling under the car, but my seat belt grabbed me; I put my hands out, and I was down.

I'm not sure quite how the next seconds went.

The best I can figure out is, that as my boots and water bottle scattered, I went down over the suitcase.  It winded me.  I was flopped over my case, looking up, flailing an arm, and figuring out how to move again.

A horn honked.  I looked up.  The lights had changed.

At this point, I begin to feel afraid.  I'm down; I'm finding it hard to move.  I'm staring at the bumper of a grey Chevy.  And people!  People!  No one has come to help.  I wave at the honker and the people.  They are waiting for their light to change, I realize.  I laugh.  I'm fucked.

The people stream over, as I begin to push myself back up.  An officer appears from nowhere; how did the police get here so quickly?  The grey chevy reveals itself to be a police car.  His lights are on; the traffic doesn't move.  Now and only now does everyone want to know if I am OK.  Now and only now are people available to help.  People surge into view.  They pick up my boots and bottle; I push back into a sitting position.  Someone hands me my case.

"I tripped," I say to police man.  I realize that it is futile.  Who will understand that I tripped because of the crack in the road -- and not just that I fell because, well, disabled people do stupid stuff like fall out of their chairs.  "While you're here; I tripped on the crack."  The officer responded immediately: he was county, not city; it wasn't his problem.

My body has settled a little now.  But the distinction between tripping and falling has suddenly become crucial to me.

I love some of the OED entries for the verb to trip:

I. To tread or step lightly or nimbly.
1.a. intr. To move lightly and nimbly on the feet; to skip, caper; to dance; †of a horse: to caper, prance (obs. rare—1). arch.

And 3

3.a. intr. To go, walk, skip, or run with a light and lively motion; to move with a quick light tread; also with it, and in phr. †to trip and go.

In fact, there are 5 different usages with sub usages before we get to:

II. To strike with the foot so as to cause stumbling (and derived senses).

(App. an English development of sense.)
6.a. trans. To cause to stumble or fall by suddenly arresting or catching the foot; ‘to throw by striking the feet from the ground by a sudden motion; to strike the feet from under the body’ (Johnson). Also with up, † down. Often with the heels, foot, etc., as object, esp. in the phrase to trip up one's heels.  (subscription only).

Tripping is so very much a foot based action.  It is all about how we do or don't get to keep control of our feet.  It is perhaps ironic to use trip to explain how I "fell," but it enables me to emphasize two things: the fact that my chair does function as a part of my body -- the casters are my extra "feet."  And second, the fact that I didn't just spasm or collapse my body into the road.  My chair and I were tripped by an environmental hazard.

I've written a lot about falling.  In 2010, I wrote about balance (i.e., not falling) as an art.  2009 has a post about falling as a dance move.  Apparently, in 2008, my hip surgery was more important than falling, though falling may have made an underlying problem worse.  In January of 2007, I wrote about the feeling of falling; in May, I wrote about the fall that separated my shoulder; in September, I wrote about some of the muscle memory and fear of falling.  In 2006, I wrote about falling as social humiliation.  (NB: this is one of my first blog posts.  It's cool to see some of the ways in which I have and haven't changed as a blogger.)

There's a subtext here that needs further investigation.  Something about my pride as a wheelchair user.  And about that sense of control that we think we have.  I hate the loss of control I experience in falling.  It strikes at my sense of artistry.  I am a skilled chair user.   I hate being reminded that, well, the unexpected happens.  I also hate the idea that I might be read as ... well, .... deep breath.... a stereotype of a disabled person.  Without control.

I am control embodied.  It pains me that I have involuntary movement.  Falling brings all this up for me.