When I was 55, I took a bad fall. I lived in the cottage in North Berkeley then, and the house hunkered down on the banks of Codornices Creek, so it was lower than the sidewalk. The path from street to porch was made of charming old brick and it curved as it sloped down to the house. It was also dangerously slick when wet. We’d tried scrubbing at it, sanding it, even roping it off in the wettest weather. But hundred year old mossy uneven bricks defeated our attempts to make them safe. I remember watching friends of my kids dash toward the place in winter and convert a fast-walk to a ski as they lost their footing. I’ll never forget the morning a PG&E meter reader slipped on the flat part near the house and broke her ankle.

That mid-March day in 2005 it was my turn. I was coming from the office and there was not much I could do about it when my feet skidded out in front of me. I came down, hard, right on my tail bone.

My first response was typical for me, and ineffective. I kept moving. I got up, made my way inside, dropped off my stuff and threw the leash around the dog’s neck, and immediately headed out with her for a walk. As I promenaded around the block I surveyed my lower spinal area for injury. I could tell I was hurt but not how much, and I was comforted that I could move all right.

I didn’t go to the doctor. I proceeded to heal but I could tell the injury was way inside. One of the most persistent symptoms was a deep itch in the center of my low back. Right in front of where I’d hang a tail if I had one. I came to understand why the dog liked it when I scratched her there.

About 15 months later I landed in the orthopedist’s office, with lower back pain. He guessed sprained disk but finally ran me through an MRI and diagnosed herniated disk (between L2 and L3, left side). He prescribed pain meds and physical therapy. He consoled me – it’s just structural after all; it’s not cancer – and told me I’d have it always.

I wonder though. I didn’t connect the back pain with the path fall at the time, but I do now. And I suspect my disk has gotten better. It really doesn’t twinge now any more than other areas of my back. But nobody is going to prescribe an MRI to determine that nothing’s wrong. That’s not the way we practice medicine.

At last I slipped myself – ten days ago
I cautiously approached my house at five,
my steps deliberate, wary – even so
my feet skied out and with full force and drive
my tail bone struck the unrelenting brick.
Since then I sit with ache and bend with pause;
there’s heaviness within – the tissue thick,
the muscles smashed, the nerves like raptor claws.
Of course I’m moving slower now: Why rush?
I’ve even cultivated quite a skill
at seldom dropping anything: the hush
of calm and gracefulness. I won’t be ill
much longer now, and never will forget
again what’s likely when the path is wet.