Wrong Moves
I've been thinking a lot lately about how you can make one wrong move, one time, and it follows you around for life - and how that can change your life for good, there it is.
Like that time when I had just woken up and was starting to do the still-asleep zombie shuffle by the giant windows in the master bedroom that had sold us on the house in the first place. It's an older house, been on the city rolls since 1900, and there are some parts that are probably original, but that's okay 'cause they knew how to build things to last in those days, right?
Except this window, which was apparently the victim of some sort of an insidious & silent dry rot which had been subtly weakening its stoutness for decades probably.
So when my still asleep stumbled over themselves as I was climbing and I fell sharply toward the window and my right arm shot out to brace myself against the frame, it gave away with a sickening stop-time moment of thinking clearly to myself something like 'Hmmm, that's not right.' and then thinking to myself as I defenestrated myself 'Good thing that porch roof will break my fall - and maybe I can grab something there to stop my descent'*.
The porch roof slowed my fall, alright, but my hands clawed
fruitlessly at the asphalt shingles as I slid down the angled roof and
fell with a loud thud on the sidewalk outside.
I was
understandably jarred for a moment and my breath all seemed to been
forced out of my body with a huge grunt as I hit. Again, within that
peculiar clarity, I remember being embarrassed that I had made such a
loud noise - 'Great, now all of the neighbors are going to look and
see', I thought with chagrin.
Then I remembered I was just getting out of bed when this unfortunate accident has befallen me.
And that I usually sleep in the buff.
And that was the state I was in.
And, because I had no clothes on, I had, obviously no pants, and therefore, no pockets in which my housekeys normally reside.
And,
because I traditionally lock the doors before bedtime - out of the fear
of the extremely unlikely fear that an unknown intruder would murder me
in my sleep - that the doors would be locked now.
Which brought me back to my current state of nudity.
As
I processed all of these thought, I turned my head and saw the first of
my neighbors gathering at the edge of my lot, gazing slackjawed in a
mixture of shock and hilarity.
And that is how I became known eternally to my shame as 'that naked guy', all because of a singular bad move.
*I know what you're thinking - there's no possible way he could be having such remarkably cogent thoughts
as he was hurtling unexpectedly to the ground a story below - but the
whole episode was unfolding for me with that peculiar clarity people
get in the midst of such sudden events. Probably you've experienced
that too, huh?
I've been thinking a lot lately about how you can make one wrong move, one time, and it follows you around for life - and how that can change your life for good, there it is.
Like that time when I had just woken up and was starting to do the still-asleep zombie shuffle by the giant windows in the master bedroom that had sold us on the house in the first place. It's an older house, been on the city rolls since 1900, and there are some parts that are probably original, but that's okay 'cause they knew how to build things to last in those days, right?
Except this window, which was apparently the victim of some sort of an insidious & silent dry rot which had been subtly weakening its stoutness for decades probably.
So when my still asleep stumbled over themselves as I was climbing and I fell sharply toward the window and my right arm shot out to brace myself against the frame, it gave away with a sickening stop-time moment of thinking clearly to myself something like 'Hmmm, that's not right.' and then thinking to myself as I defenestrated myself 'Good thing that porch roof will break my fall - and maybe I can grab something there to stop my descent'*.
The porch roof slowed my fall, alright, but my hands clawed fruitlessly at the asphalt shingles as I slid down the angled roof and fell with a loud thud on the sidewalk outside.
I was understandably jarred for a moment and my breath all seemed to been forced out of my body with a huge grunt as I hit. Again, within that peculiar clarity, I remember being embarrassed that I had made such a loud noise - 'Great, now all of the neighbors are going to look and see', I thought with chagrin.
Then I remembered I was just getting out of bed when this unfortunate accident has befallen me.
And that I usually sleep in the buff.
And that was the state I was in.
And, because I had no clothes on, I had, obviously no pants, and therefore, no pockets in which my housekeys normally reside.
And, because I traditionally lock the doors before bedtime - out of the fear of the extremely unlikely fear that an unknown intruder would murder me in my sleep - that the doors would be locked now.
Which brought me back to my current state of nudity.
As I processed all of these thought, I turned my head and saw the first of my neighbors gathering at the edge of my lot, gazing slackjawed in a mixture of shock and hilarity.
And that is how I became known eternally to my shame as 'that naked guy', all because of a singular bad move.
You're right, you never should have bought that house.
I read about a very similar experience of fast mental clarity in a story told by Brian Eno on his experience of being hit by a car. Suddenly thinking how he had to move to avoid being hit by both tires and then marveling at the brain and its functions.
or something like that.
Or is it, you should never have slept nude?, something I'd find impossible myself, to slumber all bound in garments.
Oh, oh oh oh; one should never awake, never leave the bed. Yoko?