The other night I sprained my ankle in a restaurant due to an unfortunate combination of walking too fast, a glass of wine, the steep, uneven stone staircase and distraction (I think I was looking at something on the wall, but can’t remember for sure, since the sudden, painful, twisting, involuntary, on-tip-toes-with-waving-arms gestures I found myself making removed all other conscious thought from my head) .
The odd thing, in retrospect, was how determined I was, for the first 20 minutes or so, to not show there was anything wrong with me. It’s embarrassing to hurt yourself in public so I hobbled back to the table and though feeling more than a little faint, I tried to go on as normal (not very convincingly, I’m afraid). It was somehow difficult to admit I wasn’t ok.
Coralie said that I’d gone very pale and I realized the pain wasn’t going away, gave in and I said I wasn’t feeling well. Later, she quietly and graciously offered to let me lean on her as I walked down the hill toward the car and just letting myself do that, taking the help that she offered, took some effort but accepting her kindness was really moving in a way I didn’t expect (this was only the first of a series of really generous and caring efforts by her and other people to take care of me for which I’m humbly grateful).
I described to Eric later (as he was wrapping and icing my ankle) how, when I was trying to hide that I was in pain, I kept thinking of a line from a US commercial which ends with a farmer shouting out: “Walk it off, snack fairy!” and he laughed. We wondered if the humor of the “walk it off!” line is somehow uniquely American. I wondered too, if it was a cultural or individual attitude which made my first response to both try to keep from admitting I was hurt and amuse myself while doing so.
