"Here we go," you think to yourself on the way down, realizing you are falling yet there is nothing you can do about it. Ice; the great leveler, the great humbler. It will bring you down, especially if you are still sporting your Dr. Martins that everyone has warned you are worthless up here. Ego and ass bruised, you look around primed to vent anger at someone, something, but there is nobody, nothing to blame. Gravity maybe, but that is about as logical as blaming global warming on the human race; oh wait, there may be a correlation with that one. The truth is YOU fell. So laying in the snow, I have a flash of insight.
I think of my chosen pursuit of writing the novel. As with any goal I have designated a plan of action, a path I must walk in order to reach the desired destination (of course nothing less than a Nobel Prize in Literature, a movie deal for my next 5 books, and heaps and heaps of attention from the opposite sex). The path entails yoga and meditation upon awakening, vocabulary study over breakfast, guitar session to open the mind, dedicated work time, research over protein filled dinner, endurance testing exercise; all for the maintenance of a healthy body, mind and spirit to be used to create something true.
All is grand, I'm dreaming of my Nobel acceptance speech and the flirtatious brunette in the front row when zooooop, I've failed to heed the icy conditions of the path and I am flying off my feet, only to find myself in the middle of a 13 hour Grey's Anatomy Season 3 marathon fueled by a 5 pack of Starbursts binge unaware if the sun just went down or is coming back up. I see myself clearly, dejected by the failures of Meredith and Derek but really more frustrated with my own. I have indeed fallen.
Down, on my back, I could blame my cousin for lending me her Grey's DVDs, I could blame Shonda Rhimes (actually I probably should, that show really derailed in a hurry), I could blame the weather as it is STILL about 20 below outside, but I know where the blame lies. I am the only one in this cabin, I am the only one who set crazily off after the grail, I am the one to blame. So I am left with the question, what now? I have fallen, I am pathetic, so what is the next move? With nobody to blame the only logical choice is to get up and get back on the path, get some rest and start with yoga and mediation all over again.
In rising up and setting forth again, not casting the path or the mission aside, the stride becomes more resolute. I can't help but think of snowboarding and while riding the lift looking down at the little tykes barreling down the mountain fearless when eventually they yard sale, goggles and beenie flying. They look around despondent yet their parents are not there to pick them up or feel sorry for them, so they get up and do the only thing that is left to do, keep moving down that mountain (unless they bust up a femur or something in which case they usually wail grotesquely and need to be sledded down by the ski patrol). Normally, however, the fall is a correction. A natural lesson in balance, speed and autonomy. The epiphany is that the fall surely fails to define us. What makes a person is what comes after the fall.
So I get back up : meditating, praying, channeling, writing and researching and when I fall, as I know I will, I will actually be cursing my brother and his girlfriend this time, who sent me The Wire DVDs and a box of Skittles in a very generous care package. "Somebody get the Ski Patrol!"
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