Grace

If there was ever a quality that I wished I had, and don't, it would be grace. I try to live my life with grace, and I guess I mean that in the larger sense, as in, I don't know, being gentle and quiet and dignified . . . accepting disappointments with grace, not being loud or obnoxious or crude . . . but physical grace? Not so much.

This afternoon I was leaning over to pick something up off the floor--I think it was a squashed cashew--and my chair tipped over, and I ended up on the floor. I was hoping that it had happened quietly enough that no one heard, but of course, Dave called from the next office, "Are you okay?" and I was laughing, and couldn't say anything, so he rushed over. And Kurt came over, too, and Stephanie . . . I just sat there on the floor, picking up the cashew bits and trying to look like, "Hey, I meant to do that!"

No dice, though. I guess the overturned chair gave me away. Dave picked me up off the floor, and then picked up my chair, and he said, "I liked the way you were trying to be all nonchalant." And that made me laugh again, and Bob called right at that instant, and I was laughing so hard that I couldn't speak.

Laughter like that is good for you, I just wish I didn't have to fall out of my chair to achieve it.

One night last week I was walking out to the parking lot with Jeff, and talking, and not really paying attention to what my feet were doing, and I fell over my own feet. And Dave reminded me of the time I few months ago when I was walking out of his office and fell over Simon and crashed into the opposite wall.

I tend to try to look at these things as warning signals that I should be paying more attention to what I'm doing. It usually does work--I'm very aware every time I walk down the stairs at home--it only took falling down them twice to make an impression. And I try to be aware of where Simon is when I'm walking out of Dave's office, and in the parking lot, I try to be aware of all these round seedpods about the size of a walnut--when you step on one, it's like stepping on a marble.

And I guess now I need to be aware that my chair isn't exactly stable, and I can fall right out of it. Somebody said, "Did you lean over too far?" Now that would have been even more embarrassing.

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