So this happened on Wednesday. I figured out pretty early on that I didn't really want to explain it a thousand times when I went to school, so I started thinking of stories to explain it. Here they are. You can choose your favorite.
Story #1 - I was feeling restless on Wednesday night. All evening I'd felt like there was something happening down in my sub-conscious, something I couldn't see or understand. It frustrated me. So around 10:30 I got up out of my chair and I went for a walk up into the Avenues, climbing higher and higher up the hills.
Eventually, near the top of the hill, where the streets peter out and the mountain climbs on, I came to a cemetery (I don't remember the name of it right now). I decided to go in and walk around. I was still feeling like I was in the middle of something on the inside of my head and I guess I felt like maybe looking at the graves might fit with the moment. I was walking along, looking at some of the really old headstones, folks who might have been among the first pioneers into the valley, I remembered a personal narrative that one of my kids had written when I was doing my student teaching. This kid was super quiet and truthfully, I didn't think he was very smart. But one day I was reading these narratives and his popped out at me. It was a story about him trying to start dating and having this really embarrassing experience taking this girl who was much more popular than him to a dance and for the date they helped his mom, who was the PTA president decorate the gym for it. He wrote about how he felt foolish because his mother treated him like a little kid even though he was supposed to be on this date. His story ended with him going out for a walk while remembering the experience and deciding to climb a tree. He got to the very top and felt very free, swinging around as he leaned back and forth.
I saw a tree and wondered if I was still up to climbing. I'd been pretty good at it as a kid, maybe even better than most. I thought the view from the top of a tree must be amazing, so I decided to climb a very tall pine tree that I was passing on the little road.
It was hard to get to the bottom branches. I tried to run up the trunk and jump to catch at them, and it took several tries to get it, but I finally did. I was scratching my wrists and knees on the rough bark as I climbed, but I went up, twisting and stepping through the limbs. It was gigantic tree, probably planted around the same time as some of those old headstones below. I went up and up until I got as high as I dared because the narrow trunk was leaning and I was worried about the branches being able to hold my feet.
For a moment I didn't feel like I was almost thirty years old with a life curiously devoid of the status markers I usually missed (wife, kids, house, even a car whose title was in my name). I felt like a kid. The view was fantastic, the valley a sea of lights that showed the shape of the low puffy clouds underbelly's. There were a few places where the overcast broke and you could see the night sky above. It was beautiful, and I was feeling so good that almost unconsciously I began to sway around in a lazy circle, like my old student in his story.
The circles got bigger, and all of the sudden I realized I was too high on the tree and it wasn't very stable as the top began to lean out farther over the ground. Panic was rising because the arcs kept getting larger, and no matter how I tried to restore my balance I couldn't get the tree top to quit swaying. In fact it was moving faster, and creaking loudly.
Then there was a loud crack and I don't remember very well what happened after. I think I remember hitting the branches on the way down. There was a really good whacking branch that caught me on the left leg and left a bruise as thick as my hand, and one that dug some ruts in my left shoulder. I think it might have been the truck that dug out my face, but I'm not sure. I remember hitting the ground and having the breath knocked out of me. It seemed like forever before I could breathe again.
Almost immediately I got up and walked started walking around, maybe a shock reaction to the fall, but I thought better of it and sat down. I ran my hands over myself looking for the injuries, and found where I was bleeding. After a while I staggered out of the cemetery and flagged down a passing car, which took me to LDS Hospital and dropped me at the emergency room.
