Reflections from the Slippery Slope

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World---the title of a book by Barry Lopez

Once the bottom of the Slippery Slope is touched, even briefly, it is almost impossible to scrabble back up.

I had imagined I would slide gracefully downward for ten years or so, diminishing mentally and physically with only incremental betrayal. Small, slow increments.

Boom—the bathroom floor slip—-and my life of freedom is mine no more. A shattering, almost final slam, into rock bottom of the Slippery Slope.

Some scrabbling, however, is occurring.

Scrabbling Happening: My brain is still functional for thinking. I can drive my car. I manage a type of hip hop walk for short distances using a rollator (walker).

No Scrabbling from These (yet): The broken femur leg is unstable and feels untrustworthy making unaided walking impossible (for now). My good leg has a drop foot and two curled toes requiring a brace. I am annoyed by a terribly itchy, burning scalp and a huge scab behind my head from a pressure sore. My hair is seriously thinning, falling out, and changing in texture. Swallowing dry foods like bread is difficult. Barely touching any solid surface causes bruising from blood thinner medicine.

To walk unaided would be the best ever Scrabble upwards.

To fearlessly embrace the burning world of being unable to freely walk, is so metaphorically accurate, I would hug Barry Lopez (if he were still alive) for uttering these powerful words. Of course he is describing the Big Picture of our destroyed Earth, climate change, war and excluding each other in meanness. But for me, little me, a world without walking is a conflagration I never expected. How to fiercely embrace this burning of my Ego expectation that I would always walk?

Barry Lopez was a phenomenal adventurer and one of the most honored environmental authors of our era. He said this about his trip down the Slippery Slope at age 70 after a diagnosis of prostate cancer: “When I am no longer as physical an animal, I will settle into what remains.”

Settling in… Fearlessly… I need only determine what it is that remains.