My family is all about the fall. Yes, we love the changing colors of the New England season, and we love the many sweaters my grandmother knit for each of us over the years, but that isn’t quite what I’m talking about.
My family is noted for being fall guys. And gals. In the literal sense.
We seem to share a genetic quirk. Perhaps it’s a defect. Whatever the cause, it causes us to trip. And fall. But not like normal people who fall down the stairs. We usually fall UP the stairs. Even my dogs have caught the bug, frequently tripping up the stairs with much clatter and proving that yes, we are kin, even though we are not the same species.
We jokingly refer to ourselves as the “Falling Up Family” and laugh at our ongoing escapades. When we hear of someone sharing our special talent, we usually ask if we might all be related. I have tripped and fallen up stairs so many times, it barely registers any more.
Growing up in a two story house provided years of opportunity for this special skill set to develop. I ruined countless shoes and boots tripping up the stairs and gouging the toes. Some of my favorite and most expensive jeans and footwear fell victim to the concrete front stairs (which thankfully have since been replaced with vinyl planking). I’m talking about you, dark wash Calvin Klein jeans and purple high heeled booties! The jeans were carefully stitched and relegated to ongoing encounters with a ball point pen to camouflage the scuffed pale spot, because you can’t return to the store clothing you damaged just because you are a klutz. The boots would have eventually been all marked up, it’s just too bad it happened the first day I wore them.
Now that I live in that same childhood home again, my falling up talent, which lay mostly dormant in a series of ranch houses in Tennessee for a dozen years, is once more unleashed. I have stumbled up the stairs after losing a flip flop, stepping on my slipper or the front of my bathrobe, or more embarrassingly, nothing at all. Turns out it’s actually pretty easy to forget to lift your feet high enough to clear a step and come crashing onto your elbows like a comic stuntwoman. Or maybe that’s just me. And my immediate family.
Luckily, my numerous upward falls have been largely without major incident. My falls in the normal downward direction, however, are another story for another day.
My family is noted for being fall guys. And gals. In the literal sense.
We seem to share a genetic quirk. Perhaps it’s a defect. Whatever the cause, it causes us to trip. And fall. But not like normal people who fall down the stairs. We usually fall UP the stairs. Even my dogs have caught the bug, frequently tripping up the stairs with much clatter and proving that yes, we are kin, even though we are not the same species.
We jokingly refer to ourselves as the “Falling Up Family” and laugh at our ongoing escapades. When we hear of someone sharing our special talent, we usually ask if we might all be related. I have tripped and fallen up stairs so many times, it barely registers any more.
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| Where we hone our skills. |
Now that I live in that same childhood home again, my falling up talent, which lay mostly dormant in a series of ranch houses in Tennessee for a dozen years, is once more unleashed. I have stumbled up the stairs after losing a flip flop, stepping on my slipper or the front of my bathrobe, or more embarrassingly, nothing at all. Turns out it’s actually pretty easy to forget to lift your feet high enough to clear a step and come crashing onto your elbows like a comic stuntwoman. Or maybe that’s just me. And my immediate family.
Luckily, my numerous upward falls have been largely without major incident. My falls in the normal downward direction, however, are another story for another day.
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