anti:freeze

Friday the 13th: I fell so hard I bounced off a curb and whacked my bones twice against rough concrete. Skin ripped. Joints bruised. Blood spattered on my oldest and favorite pants.

My husband and I crossed a busy intersection, and his foot somehow slipped under mine. The fall felt more like a dive: my body propelled upward, with a split-second pause before gravity took hold; the fall straight down, face first and fast. By the time it was over, my chipped front tooth hovered just an inch above the curb. My right elbow vibrated and stung - alternating between electric shocks and stinging numbness. My left knee stiffened from a bruise deep inside the kneecap. My right hip and shoulder burned. And my hands leaked blood down my wrists.

I stood, turned up my palms, and walked home to bandage the wounds.

My husband walked with me, apologizing over and over for the accident while I cried. I did not cry because of the pain, but because I collapsed in a busy intersection, where everyone could see.

I am used to collapse. Epilepsy will do that to a person. But this fall felt particularly brutal: a sucker punch; a kick in the kneecap when I was already down. And with an audience.

Today is the first day I can bend my knee all the way. And I can finally feel my elbow again. Slowly, the chunks of skin torn from my palms regenerate and seal the cuts. Looks like they will not even scar.

***

Friday the 20th: My husband announces that his school is cutting costs due to falling stock values. From now on, faculty raises will be capped at 3%. Health insurance costs will increase 14% this summer. (Figure in inflation and rent increases, and well, there are no more raises. Only cuts.) Which means another year without insurance for me. The costs for spouses and dependents already surpass what some people pay for rent or cars. And most private insurers are not keen on epileptics with a history of migraines, eczema, allergies, and other issues.

I think back to the fall and remember the cars screeching to a stop. What if their tires had rolled over my legs? What then?

At least I have dental. If my teeth had cracked on that curb, I could have them fixed.

***

Saturday the 21st: Quarter After Eight has delayed Volume 11 until 2006 - the volume in which my essay, State Lines, will appear.

I am used to long, unbearable waits. Writers, after all, spend most of their lives waiting: for rejections, for contracts, for late checks, grants, galleys, and magazine copies.

But this news felt as visceral as my fall.

I still feel elated to publish there, but because of this delay, I will be forced to wait another year to send this out as part of a book manuscript. (And time slips so fast. I wrote this essay in 2001-2002, revised it in 2003 for my final manuscript, sent it out in 2003, waited a year to hear from an editor, sent it out again, and it was accepted. And after that, the first editor suddenly wanted it. So by the time it sees print, it will feel old and distant from my current work.)

The essay is about epilepsy and madness, intersections and right angles, chaos theory, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. Bridges. Hard falls.