Outside The Box

“I know this defies the law of gravity, but, eh… You see, I never studied law.” -Bugs Bunny

Some time ago, I was disappointed when some young friends were politely disinterested in learning to use a map and compass before embarking on a hiking trip. They planned to follow the prompts on their phones to get from point A to point B, and I was disabused of the notion that my years of practicing orienteering would be of any use to anyone.

Therefore, I was eager to help when my friend, Marty, suggested that we could use some of that knowledge to locate his property line by consulting an old survey. I knew that if we could find a single iron pin on the line, we could eventually find them all.

It was a fine day for amateur surveying; one of those early spring days before bugs and pollen arrive, warm enough to be comfortable in the sun but not hot enough to sweat with the exertion of traversing the steep grades of our North Georgia foothills.

I was happily engaged in two of my favorite things: spending time with a good friend and doing something that requires the use of, as Agatha Christie’s Poirot might say, “the little gray cells.” Ah, but danger lurks when contentment overcomes awareness, and as comic writer Ben Edlund’s character “The Tick” would remind us, “Gravity is a harsh mistress.”

The log crossing the gully looked sound. I tested it, jumped on it, stomped it hard before committing to the crossing. It felt sound too and didn’t budge at all from my efforts. When I was about halfway across the gully and suspended about 5 feet in the air, it budged.

All at once the center collapsed, like a trap door opening in a cartoon, and gravity got into the mix. Gravity. It gets in everything. Now, a 5 ft. fall onto leaf mold over soft ground is not a particularly dangerous thing. If you land right. Unfortunately, the section of log under my feet got there just before I did. I landed on my side with the log between the ground and my lower ribcage.

It’s interesting, the things that go through your mind when you get the wind knocked out of you. It was not an unfamiliar sensation for me. It felt just like the time my mother told me not to climb the wisteria vine on the tree outside her kitchen window. I can still see her face through the window as I fell with the vine clutched in my hand.

It was also reminiscent of that time when I was learning whitewater canoeing and swam Screaming Left Hand Turn on the Chattooga River while my friend, Rain, yelled, “Don’t grab the gunwales.” I grabbed the gunwales and both river and rock conspired to locate almost the same ribs.

When the breath returned to my body, I thought of how many times I had warned young hikers under my care not to attempt a similar stunt. Deep breaths, a quick probe to assess. Nothing broken, but this is going to hurt when the nerves finish organizing their protest.

Bruised ribs can be mightily inconvenient, especially when the best weather of the year for working outside is taunting you as you look out the window from your chair with the heating pad. But we make the best of every situation when we can. Tracey cooked an excellent sympathy supper for me, and I didn’t even have to do the dishes. I indulged in a few days of rest and contemplation, which is particularly satisfying when you don’t have to feel like you should be doing anything else.

Among the things I contemplated was my personal history with gravity, and the number of times the Creator has had to intervene to preserve this minor project of his. There was the flying somersault over the handlebars of the bicycle on the steep hill, the wind that suddenly and unexpectedly blew the crown out of the tree I was topping, the leaky hose that turned the metal roof into a waterslide. I could go on for some time with gravity and then begin a chapter on inertia and my history with physics and classical mechanics. Don’t tell me it’s luck. I don’t believe in luck, and neither does statistics.

I also contemplated the toughness, the true grit of our forbears. I’m sure my grandfather’s ribs were in worse shape than mine after being kicked by a mule and enduring the many hazards of his world built by hand, and he didn’t have the luxury of taking time off to complain and contemplate. I wondered if he would have lived as long as he did were he given the benefits of the sophisticated medicine of our age. I marvel at its abilities, and I have benefited from them, but I also notice that given the opportunity, it always, always finds something wrong and in need of treatment.

My ribs have healed now and there is wood to be chopped and water to be carried. I will stay mindful of gravity. I’m convinced that it’s stronger than it used to be. I will also be mindful that while the Good Lord looks after children and fools, I can now only claim one of those benefits.