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(Misplaced apostrophes should be next....)

Hitting the wall

I was hurrying from the copy machine down the hall to my office when a co-worker rounded a corner just behind me. I turned to greet her, without breaking stride or paying the slightest bit of attention (ya think?) to where I was going, and ran smack-dab into a corner of wall that protrudes into the hallway.

So hard that I literally bounced off the wall and landed on the floor.
R-e-a-l-l-y graceful and classy.

Coworkers immediately gathered, and I got back up as quickly as possible to assure them no ambulance was required. The damage seemed limited to a bruise on the hip on which I'd landed, a bump on my forehead and split upper and lower lips. A few tissues stopped the bleeding, a cup of ice chips moderated the swelling, and a day later the only visible trace of my mishap is a semi-fat lip.

This is just the latest misadventure I've experienced of late, and as I take inventory of them all, a theme emerges. I misstepped on the ice almost a year ago to the day and broke my wrist... slammed my foot into the leg of a desk a couple of months ago and broke my toe... and now have become one, momentarily, with a wall.

Clearly, I have a proclivity for really stupid accidents.

So, is there anything to be learned? Why, yes. In addition to discovering I can bounce off the walls with the best of them, there are several lessons to apply going forward:

1) Slow down.
2) Look both ways. Or just look, period.
3) This attending to the moment thing is not only good for appreciating what's around me, it might well save my life one of these days. Or at least what's left of my dignity.

Thought for the moment

No five-year plan for me – I’m on the five-minute plan. You can’t be joyfully participating in the day if you’re thinking too much down the road.

– Julia Roberts

Scourge of the earth

Back in the day, stately elm trees lined the streets of my neighborhood. But by the 1970s, Dutch elm disease had claimed them all.

I'll give the city credit for planting new trees in their place... but whoever decided that sweetgums were a suitable replacement should be forced to lie in perpetuity in a bed of the fruit of the sweetgum tree: these horrid little spiny balls.

They clog gutters and storm sewers. They twist the ankles of unsuspecting pedestrians. Every gust of wind in the late fall and winter shakes more of them from the trees' otherwise bare branches. No amount of raking can keep up with them - they're like the scene in Fantasia where the dancing brooms bring more and more buckets of water to frantic sorcerer's apprentice Mickey Mouse. There is no end to them. They make the cold, gray days of winter all the more difficult to endure.

They do force me to pay attention to the moment when I take Mr. James for a walk, or make my way to and from the bus stop. If I don't watch my step, I'm likely to find myself sprawled on the ground amid them.

I guess they are Nature's way of reminding us that, smart and determined as we humans are, we're not really in charge.

Personal pride

This morning I boarded the bus to work to find it decked out for Christmas. Garland was draped over the windows, a shelf at the back of the bus was stacked with brightly gift-wrapped packages, and Carmelita, the normally feisty bus driver, was resplendent in a twinkling-light necklace and clear sense of accomplishment.

As we made our way downtown Carmelita told us she had purchased the boxes, wrapping paper and bows from the retail store where she works a second job to make ends meet. She said that her supervisor, seeing her work, had decided to rotate her bus during the season to different routes and drivers so others could enjoy her efforts as well. It was obvious she had mixed feelings about that - she had done this for her passengers, in whom she clearly takes an interest, and her bus, her personal work space. After all, bus #5804 is to Carmelita what my office is to me, and I can't say I'd appreciate taking time to pimp up my office and then give it up to other people work in. But she accepted the notion of spreading the cheer around.

Her efforts - and her obvious sense of pride - brought smiles to the faces of all who boarded, reminding me that in a time when we trample each other to get a deal on flat screen tvs, all it really takes to change someone's day for the better is a little bit of thoughtfulness.

Disconnected

I recently bought an iPhone and am trying to figure out how to use it. I don't really have a need for all the fancy things it does but I remember the beating George Bush the elder took when he expressed surprise at the supermarket scanners, and I don't want to follow in those footsteps. I may have been weaned on Typewriter 2.0, but I am determined to have at least a passing acquaintence with Web 2.0 before it morphs into the next big thing.

So over the weekend, I set up a couple of applications, downloaded some music and subscribed to a handful of podcasts, and when I boarded the bus to work this morning decided to give it a try. I plugged my earphones into the iPhone, listened to a couple of news items on an NPR podcast, then settled into tunes from Bonnie Raitt and Madeline Peyroux.

But here's the thing: it wasn't fun at all. I felt disconcerted, disoriented. Here I was, connected to a whole world of opportunities, but disconnected from the reality around me. It was really uncomfortable.

Before long, I put the iPhone in my bag and returned to my usual routine of people-watching and looking out the window. By the time the bus reached my stop, I'd regained my equilibrium and went on about my day.

I'm not giving up the iPhone. I'll try the podcasts again, most likely at the gym, where disconnecting from the reality of 45 minutes on the ellpitical machine will be a blessing. I'm already a text-messaging addict, and I love the GPS, the weather channel, the quick access to YouTube and the application that turns the iPhone into a flashlight. That "music genome project" thing is cool.

But if it's a choice between the rich and varied world inside the sleek little iPhone, and the messy business of real people, I'll take the people.

Change hurts for good

My Saturday morning aerobics class is one of my favorite activities of the weekend. It's a "low impact" class, said to be good for all fitness levels -- meaning that those who are overweight, out of shape or getting on in years can participate without requiring an ambulance on stand-by. It is led by a mid-50s looking fellow named Steve.

The routine each week is fairly predictable. Some warm up and stretching, 40 minutes of choreographed bouncing around to thumping remixes of tunes from Three Dog Night, Tina Turner and Fleetwood Mac, about 10 minutes of abs, and some stretching. The occasional newcomer catches on fairly quickly and we regulars don't really need Steve to tell us when to turn to the left, turn to the right or pivot to the back. If I choose to alter it at all, it's to add a little more bounce to my step during Proud Mary or Oye Como Va. I leave a little sweaty but feeling quite successful in having managed the steps, and maybe a little cocky about having been able to put more effort into the routine than some of my more elderly classmates.

Today, however, Steve was out of town, and a substitute named Michelle had been engaged to fill in. Michelle is a couple of decades younger, about as big around as a pipe cleaner and a lot more enthusiastic than the sardonic Steve. She played techno-disco music instead Pointer Sisters, and her definition of low impact clearly differs from Steve's.

She also did different steps, in different order, and with a different sort of count -- I can't quite explain it, but her correlation of limb movements to 1-2-3-4 had me a half-beat off through most of the routine. She had us marching forward and backward at different times and doing grapevines in different directions than normal, sending several of us left when we were supposed to go right and bumping into each other throughout the workout. It was a bit chaotic, compared to the predictable class it is when Steve holds the microphone.

Today, I left a whole lot sweaty and not at all cocky. I already know I will hurt tomorrow -- I can tell I used different muscles, in different ways.

But it's the sort of hurt that comes with accomplishment, like chasing cobwebs away, like moving in a different, better (or at least interesting) direction. The sort of hurt that's good for you. I'll be glad when Steve returns and my Saturday order is restored, but today it felt good to change it up a bit, and I'm better for it.