Fall Isn't Just A Season

One of my many talents in life is falling. I’m talking the forgetting to pick up your left foot, tripping over your rain boot, and catapulting into a giant puddle in the middle of a college campus, backpack overhead, water bottle floating in the water type of falling. Or the trying not to fall into a puddle and jumping over the puddle type of fall that still lands you falling into the puddle, but this time with a sprained ankle and a broken toe because you are wearing high heels. Or the quite similar forgoing running down a hill with your friends and opting to take the stairs because you are afraid you will fall down the hill and falling down the stairs anyway and then spraining your ankle type of fall. Then of course there is the being pressured to stand on a stadium chair at a soccer game while currently on crutches and ending up falling on the spectators behind you after you try to adjust your already sprained ankle that you got from rolling your ankle during dance team auditions type of falling. And how can I forget the ever common falling in the shower when trying to multitask practicing Irish step dance and cleaning your body. Or the falling down a staircase when trying to practice Irish step dance and the always very difficult task of walking type of falling. And what about the prize worthy attempting to ambush your younger sister into the snow but tripping and tumbling down a hill and into the street type of fall. Or the universal, self-explanatory walking-chatting-falling type of fall that occurs when you are on a nice stroll with friends in Southern Mexico and your brain decides to not send a signal to your pesky left foot and you end up ever so gracefully ninja barrel rolling onto the tile floor. But I bet you guys all understand that one. Been there, done that, am I right?

So of course, I start to worry that I have been in Thailand for nine months and I have not fallen once. Not one single time. I mean, I’ve tripped and bumped my leg on a patient bed a few times and I’ve slipped playing soccer in the dirt. And there was that time that I slipped on the recently rained on tiles in the Care Center while holding all the patients’ medicines, sending glass and multicolored tablets all over the floor. But there’s been none of my signature barrel rolling, no crutches, no making the people around me feel secondhand embarrassment for the girl lying face first in the puddle on her way to economics. For me, fall isn’t just a season. It marks all four seasons – rain or shine. But mostly rain. Seriously, I am sad that Amy Schumer had the brilliant idea to tumble in front of Kimye at the Met Gala before I did, because I would have killed that. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of that all the other times I have been in their presence. But the Kardashians and Kanye better take another vacation to Thailand quickly because my talent is quickly eluding me.

So this all gets me thinking. Is there something wrong with me? Have I contracted some weird tropical disease that makes you not embarrass yourself? Do I have worms living in my feet that suddenly make them move when they are supposed to? Should I go see a doctor and tell her “Excuse me, I haven’t been my normal self in the last couple of months, it seems that I can walk without falling, is this something I should be concerned about”?

But then of course, just in time before I start WebMding symptoms of unclumsiness and a feeling of coordination (which of course will probably tell me I have cancer), I am reminded that your girl’s still got it.

The day is Monday, May 4th, 2015. Time: Approximately 3:45 p.m. Current apparel: a white t-shirt and flowy cotton grey pants with gold stars and a spiral design that end just above the ankle. Current mission: ride to Hands of Hope – a five minute bike ride from the Care Center – to talk with my supervisor Antonia about my friend Maxine visiting me in Nong Khai at the end of June.

As I leave the Care Center, my pants, which were handed down to me from my community member Anette before she left to travel in Australia and New Zealand with her husband Gert, begin to get caught in the side of the pedal. I think about going to change my pants, but know that I need to talk to Antonia before she leaves work for the day at 4:00 p.m. and I do not have the time to head back to my house. Plus I have worn these pants many times on the bike, just had Anette, and I know that I will be fine. So instead I move the bike seat up more in the hopes that it will prevent any more incidents with the pants getting stuck in the pedal. I ride successfully past the man who runs the first store in the village and then again successfully past his son who runs the second store in the village. I successfully avoid the neighborhood dogs and the oncoming herd of cows and their herder. I successfully turn left onto the adjacent street and through the group of children that are playing on the road, who yell in English “hello”, “goodbye”, and “my name is” as I pass by. I make it to the end of the road and successfully turn another left onto the next street that leads to a rounding corner that then leads to Hands of Hope. But here is where my success at riding ends, but my success at falling kicks in.

The entire ride, I have been focused on where my pant legs are in relation to my bike wheel and pedals. However, as I am about to round the corner that leads to Hands of Hope, I am instantly reminded of the dog that lives nearby that is going to eat my leg off one of these days and about how high I put the bike seat up and will not be able to properly, safely stop and how today might be the day that I become kibble bits. As my mind begins to wander about the possible impending doom of my ankle becoming a doggy chew toy, I hear a loud ripping sound that takes my brain a few seconds to register that it is coming from my own person. As I look down at my lap, I realize my left pant leg is quickly being ripped off of my body and being eaten by my back tire spokes. I brake as fast as I can and jump of off my bike, but because my left pant leg is almost completely embedded in the tire, with just a little piece of fabric stuck on my waist, the bike slams into my knee and brings me falling to the ground. I jump up with the most lighting speed I have ever moved at and begin to unravel the fabric coiled around the wheel, all very aware that little white lace thongs are great for not showing through flowy, almost see-through pants but not so much when those said pants happen to be ripped off your body by your bike and now your entire, extremely white butt cheek is about to be seen by anyone who happens to ride by. But so far, no one has come around the bend. I am all alone. The children on the adjacent street have not decided to move their game down the road. No little old grandmas have decided that right now is the perfect time for an afternoon walk.

So I work as fast as I can; spinning and spinning the wheel until all the fabric is released from the gluttonous jaws of the bike wheel. Once I am no longer attached to the bike, I get to the first order of business – covering my blindingly white butt cheek before I forever become the white girl that mooned that entire Baan Rongmek village. I wrap the remaining fabric over the front of my left leg and behind my back, fumbling but managing to tie it on my right hip and bringing the rest of the cloth over to my left hip before securing it with the string that fortuitously is on the pants waist. Thank God I watched Project Runway all those years because my newly fashioned wrap skirt with one pant leg was totally believable as something I bought at a store. It was the very short nature, almost butt cheek revealing length of the skirt in the back that gave it away, however. I should have grabbed a banana leaf behind me and to add a little length and flair to my outfit, but I did not have the time. But you know what? No one saw me. Not one person.

As I walked the remaining bit to Hands of Hope my heart was still pounding from the adrenaline of realizing I was standing half naked in a tiny Thai village. Once I sat down in the office and began to type out a very succinct text to my mom and best friend that read “my pant leg just got stuck in my back tire and just ripped my pants completely off. Literally my pants were just ripped off my body in the middle of the street”, that’s when the laughs started to come. I couldn’t type the message without dying laughing and because I had yet to tell the one other staff member and the nun in the office what had happened I tried to cover up my laughing with pretending I was actually coughing. But I couldn’t stop laughing. Only me, I kept thinking. This would only happen to me.

But hey, I’ve always known I was good at falling. Next time Kim, Kanye, and me are on a street together I’m going to one up Amy Schumer and ride by them and purposefully have my bike eat my pants. Next time I just won’t wear a white, lace thong. Or maybe I will. Who knows? That was half the fun.