As if I could. They pulled the ubiquitous emergency cords to summon help.

It was March 11 and I was being oriented to bocce play by my team captain. He had me practice rolling softball-size, red wooden balls down the grass court toward a smaller white ball, the pallino. As he took his turn, I stepped back . . . and tripped over the 5” gray edge of the court.

It was not a graceful fall. My body twisted in a jerking motion as I landed on my tail bone and right hip, with one leg on top of the other. It was excruciating to shift to a sitting position but I had to ease the pressure on my lower back. Once upright, I asked the captain to sit with his back to mine to prop me up.

Within minutes two security staff arrived with their red medical backpacks. One took my vitals and asked if I had hit my head. No, fortunately, although I briefly saw stars and thought I was blacking out as I hit the ground. They put a wide strap under my arms to help raise me up and to hobble to the bench. They called an ambulance to transport me to the emergency room. I’ve watched ambulances arrive almost daily on campus, never expecting one would need to come for me!

At the ER, the doctor said I had a concussion and perhaps a herniated disk, and ordered CT scans and X-rays. A nurse gave me a shot to ease the shooting pain that was at a level 8 on a 1-10 scale. I googled “herniated disk” on my phone and didn’t have its symptoms of pain radiating from my spine down my back legs. I was almost relieved when the doctor diagnosed a compression fracture in the L3 lumbar vertebra. He explained it’s like an accordion deflating, and the horizontal break would need time and rest to heal.

Two hours later, a tech arrived with a sturdy back brace. She told me to stand as she fastened it with Velcro around my waist, beneath my breasts and resting on my hips. Then she pulled two straps to tighten it and I gasped. I felt like I was being compressed into a Victorian corset when she pulled the ties.

The doctor told me to wear it constantly to protect my back, only taking it off to sleep. I was discharged with Percocet for pain, a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory. He gave me the name of a spine doctor to schedule a follow-up visit and X-ray in six weeks.

At home that night, I cried because of the intense pain—and that my hopes and plans for the spring had been shattered by the break. I was finally feeling like I was settling in here with an enjoyable schedule of activities planned: water aerobics and land exercises five mornings a week, meditation and journaling class, bridge games, organized excursions off campus, and bocce ball. With the approach of spring, I could open myself to the beautiful outdoors here in new ways with other residents. Now all that was curtailed.

I made the appointment with the spine doctor and for an X-ray. A resident who had had a spinal fracture like mine told me, “The pain will lessen and you will heal.” That became my mantra.

I needed to figure how to live my semi-confined existence until then.
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The six weeks coincided with the Catholic Lenten season. Why not use the unexpected free time as an in-home retreat?

I had already enrolled in two virtual meditation courses at the Earth and Spirit Center in Louisville: A Spiritual Guide to Reality and The Eightfold Path of Buddhism. I had started Richard Rohr’s new book, The Tears of Things, in which he uses the teachings of the Hebrew prophets to guide a collective response to our troubled times.

I began each day with prayers, a spiritual reading from Rohr, and 20 or more minutes of mindful meditation. I followed with the day’s reading from Madhu’s book we are using in her Meditation and Journaling class, and then journalled. I practiced mindful pauses throughout the day to come back to Awareness. And I listened to a lecture in one of the online courses. Those, along with a long rest period lying flat without my back brace, gave my life a tranquil rhythm. I grew to cherish my solitude and found the healing time to be an unexpected blessing.
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I wasn’t a complete hermit. My friend drove me on weekly trips to the grocery or drug store. Although he saw me struggle to get in and out of his car and to get comfortable in the passenger seat, he didn’t quite comprehend my condition and the unpredictable pain it caused.

He continued to invite me for dinner here with his friends, or the Saturday movies, or even asking if I were going to meditation class. I did not want to disappoint the person who sat with me for five hours in the ER and drove me on necessary shopping trips. Finally, I decided to “Show, don’t tell” to help him understand my reluctance to join him.

I invited him to try out my back brace. I fastened the brace around his midriff and then tightened it with the two ties. He gasped—as everyone does the first time—adjusting to breathing with a constricted diaphragm. I had him sit on the sofa, in a reading chair, and then a straight chair. He couldn’t comfortably—and finally understood why any prolonged sitting was difficult and could be painful.
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I had been determined to take the Ashby Ponds bus trip into DC to see the cherry blossoms, which was scheduled for late March, less than three weeks after my fall. My love affair with cherry blossoms began 10 years ago when I travelled to Japan to visit my niece and her young family. We strolled along a riverbank under the wide canopy of pink and white cherry trees near their Tokyo home. Lindy pushed her 6-month-old twin boys in a double stroller, and I held her 4-year-old daughter’s hand.

I fell in love during that trip. I was transfixed by the delicate beauty of the blossoms and transported back into Japanese life of centuries past. I told Lindy I wanted to write a poem about them. She laughed and said, “Like so many others going back hundreds of years!”

Since then, my dream had been to visit DC during cherry blossom season; now I live here! I may have been the first to sign up for the Ashby Ponds bus trip into DC to see them during their peak bloom. That dream sustained me during the first two weeks of severe pain after my fall. I bravely fastened my back brace and took the bumpy bus ride into DC for the tour of the cherry trees along the Tidal Basin. These are the ones gifted from Japan to the U.S. in 1912. I barely caught glimpses of them from my row seat in the back of the bus. Later, of course, I paid the price for that trip with renewed pain that sent me to bed the rest of the day.

Fortunately, Ashby Ponds has its own swath of cherry trees, planted in front of the aptly-named Cherry Blossom Square building. (The building has the “1912” restaurant.) That weekend was peak viewing with the glorious opening of most blossoms. A gentle breeze showered me with cherry petals on that sunny spring day. Their delicate and ephemeral beauty enchants us—and it reminds us of the Buddhist principle of impermanence.

I also created my own cherry blossom shrine on the shelf outside my door, as they truly were my greatest joy during my recovery. And I added Basho’s haiku poem: “Things beyond number, all somehow called to mind by blossoming cherries.”
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During my innocent days before the fall, I had been struggling with the existential and spiritual dilemma of how to find meaning and purpose in my new life here. There had to be “more to life” than exercise classes, bridge games, educational talks, movies and theater performances, superficial interactions during meals—and, even, meditation and journaling.

When I discussed this with my friend Fr. Andrew, he told me things I continue to ponder:
“It’s not a destination; it’s a process. Purpose and meaning are too big to fit the little me. We can’t really know because life is so vast and dynamic. It’s not something we have; it’s something we are becoming. The process is the thing. . . . It’s more of an openness; a way of being alive, of getting involved with life.”

Within me is settling a new realization how that ungraceful fall may be bringing new grace to my life.

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To be continued...

日本語訳：特別寄稿エッセイ「村での暮らしー5・6か月目（2025年3～4月）：尻もちがくれた恩寵（おんちょう）」　◆ ジュルス・マークアート