Ouch: An injury memoi
At
three I was adorable, alone, smashing glass milk bottles on the front steps of
our rather posh London digs. Lots of literary friends, the Amises, the Gales,
poets like Larkin, etc. Tons of booze except I was three and according to
family legend the drunk Scottish doctor stitched my knee up, one eye open.
At
six in Sandycove, my birthday, across from the 40-foot where that guy cooked
his kidneys and Joyce had his tower. I was given my first petticoat and felt
obligated to hang upside down to share. Fell and gashed my chin open, several
stitches and then back to the party.
In America,
1968 rough year with wild oldest sister and constant catastrophes, fall off the
roof, break my arm, appendicitis, lemon pudding/napalm burns all the skin off
my leg. I am yelled at for inconveniencing everyone.
Long
pause. I am a barista in NYC before coffee shops and I am doored while biking,
undiagnosed broken hand. Have baby-72 hours of labor, constant carpal tunnel
but I am healthy. Then, bikes-bag caught in wheel, broken elbow, hit speed
bump, broken shoulder, fall in Maui, wrist, elbow and finger.
And
now this-fall down my mother’s stairs at dawn to return to Chicago-“I think I’m
really hurt. We have to leave. Don’t wake up my mother.”
Pilon
fracture. Surgery.
2016
was a heart breaker.
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