Sports-Klutz Widow

Moon Over West Seattle: My Left Cheek

September 25, 2006 11:13 AM | 0 Comments

This is a story of excruciating pain. PG. Parental Guidance Recommended. This is the Sports Widow's painful, private story of a bruised buttock told in hindsight, several days after the event.

ast Thursday morning, I woke up feeling dreadful - head and body aches, woozey, fluey and any other words ending in y. As I was walking down the carpeted stairs of our rental home (we're in the procees of remodeling right now), my foot slipped on a patch of old worn carpet and I slid down the stairs with the velocity of a Jamaican bob-sledder, clunking down on my left buttock the entire way. At first, I lay supine with arms akimbo (my arms weren't really positioned this way, but I've been dying to use this word), looking up at the white, popcorn ceiling and wondering who invented this finishing technique that everyone now detests and wants to remove. Then, I yelled. I cried. I asked My Maker: WHYYYYYYY!!!!! WHYYYYYYY am I such a klutz?????

In particular, I was concerned that I could have broken my tailbone again. This is a weak part of my skeletal structure, and giving birth to three children with 100th percentile head measurements (frankly that's the only dimension we mothers really care about), my tailbone has been overtaxed to the point of snapping a few too many times. I've frequently said that, if I could do it all over again, I would search for a husband with a pinhead versus one who wears Size 7 3/4 hats.

Fortunately, my generously-headed husband Bryan was still home to attend to THE EMERGENCY. Always the voice of calm, he sent me to bed with an ice pack applied to the derriere, but it didn't do much good. The result was Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. applied to my left cheek, an indigo tattoo with a murky sun at its center. As the days went by and the bruise became more pronounced, Bryan surveyed the strike zone, which was about two hands long, and summed it up: "It's not as bad as the one you got when you slipped down the Cleveland Park Subway during that rain squall in Washington, D.C." Indeed, that bruise was legendary. It was far more extensive, and the grillwork from the escalator added a strong sense of texture, of pattern, of je ne sais quois (I love the French language). If you don't believe me, ask my sister-in-law Ann, who witnessed it. She's still in therapy.

The funny thing about having something this grotesque on your body is that, no matter how modest you may be, there is an urge to expose it, to get a public reaction. Modesty and a sense of social convention prevent me from posting a picture of my bare bottom on this site or Flickr, BUT my three children have all viewed it. They all pretty much say the same thing: EEEWWWWWW!!! Then, they run out of the bathroom in horror. But, I'm not sure if that's how they would respond to my fanny generally or if this is a reaction to the bruise specifically. My nine-year-old son Austin did say that I wouldn't need a costume for Halloween - my purple behind would terrorize just about anyone.