At Gravity's Mercy

NOW I remember why I kept thinking of the word 'chute' Monday night as I lay sleepless in my bed. I was dreaming in French, not a usual occurrence I assure you. The word ‘chute’ means ‘fall’ as in ‘take a fall’ and what I was fixed on in my semi-dreaming state was  falling, and specifically falling off ladders.On the weekend, David and I had been recalling the time an old ladder of he was on just cracked and fell apart under his weight, slamming him down hard on the ground from just six feet in the air but my, it hurt, he said. He got slammed on the ground a lot in earlier days – he played schoolboy football and has the scars to  prove  it– but this time he was surprised to find himself flat out; surprised to see that somewhere along the line he had lost that goatlike ability to make the quick lateral leap and land right-side-up. (How do young skateboarders DO it? How do they take those risky jumps and land on their backs or heads or elbows, then spring right up to collect commiserating high-fives from their pals?I heard about a worse fall last week, when a new friend told me about the spill she took using a ladder to get at the light fixture nestled into the high faraway ceiling of her old house’s front porch. She slipped in the reaching for it and one leg hurtled  down, carrying her body with it – while the other leg remained caught in the ladder’s rungs, splitting her in two almost, nearly snapping her like a wishbone. A full week after the fall her muscles were still in a state of spasm and the skin on the whole lateral side of one leg looked like tie-dye.We’re frail creatures all right. We can’t swim for more than a minute or two under water and we sure can’t fly, even when our lives depend on it. We’re baby birds, blind in the nest.Now this little-known video of the young Emmy Lou Harris doing that great other Defying Gravity song written by Jimmy Dale Gilmore and made mega-famous by Jimmy Buffet. It’s a love song, to a person and a planet. Give it a listen and – hold on tight to the branch.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFujVHeQJ0Y&feature=related]