To turn the other cheek, and get it bruised and battered

Wow, another test of my motivation today. I started my volunteer stunt Monday and it is fantastic ! Carpentry is lots of fun and uses the logic side of my brain well. The house is right beside the river Charente and the neighbors keep sheep and hens and geese and have little vegetable gardens, and so the other half of my brain can be used well as well admiring the sights around me. We have been installing these plywood panels for the roof (the first layer, after is insulation, after vapor barrier, and then tiles), and boy they provide great exercise ! Each is the size of a dining room table top, and I must lift them out of the truck, then lift them above my head to the second level, where the foreman grabs them and hoists them up. Lots of opportunity for balancing acts as well as we tiptoe across the wood skeleton structure (called the charpente in French) of the roof. The weather has been sunny and around twenty degrees, and I have worked in my wife-beater (please, don’t be alarmed) and overalls. I have a sunburn on the back of my neck, in mid-March, at a latitude the same level as perhaps North Bay, or Timmins. Wonder how long that will last…

So I placed a plywood panel that hung out over one of the wooden support ribs and forgot to staple it to the frame. I went to grab another panel and tiptoe across the ribs and then, with the heat and the sustained effort of carrying this beefy panel, my brain farted and I stepped on the panel I had just laid. It broke under my weight like a trap door and I fell through 12 feet to the concrete floor beneath. I bashed my arm on something jutting out of the nearby wall and landed hard on my left butt cheek and my mid-back. The fall was quite fast seeming, and it felt kind of like those dreams where you just aren’t quick enough to catch something or escape something, and you feel this anxious disappointment. I saw the split-second opportunity to grab the ribs of this house and hang from them, but I was too slow. When I hit the floor, immediately my diaphragm constricted. Perhaps a second later, I found that I couldn’t breathe. I felt pain in my butt and my back, and I tried to inhale, but nothing moved. I pushed at my diaphragm, and instead of breathing I started emitting this continuous incoherent cry of pain (a cry which I hadn’t emitted since I broke my wrist playing soccer at 14), which surely alarmed and at the same time relieved the foreman who seemed to have teleported down from the roof frame to the floor beside me in an instant. I was quite calm and my mind was alert, I thought to myself that I should continue to observe my body sensations, and try to take long, controlled, calming breaths. When I saw that I couldn’t breathe, I decided calmly to make a muscular effort to breathe. After perhaps 15 seconds, I took a glorious breath, and then another and another.

« Oh putan, Maurizio, tu est okay ? Oh la la, oh la la, tu fa mal ? »

As I breathed slowly and deeply , I replied « ca va, je pense… » and then a sigh of relief. He put his coat under my head. He was already on the phone with a medic telling them « Il tombe de la charpente….peut etre 3 metres….Oui, il parle… ». I checked body sensations in my legs and my back. Ok, I am not paralyzed. I tried to move all parts of my body. Ok, my brain is sending signals and my corresponding muscles are responding without that sharp, lancing pain of broken bones. I started to laugh uncontrollably, but not too maniacically, in relief. I think he was confused as to how to react, and he uncontrollably emitted a laugh in response, but then asked me questions about my condition in a frightened tone. I really scared him, he said, and then, like a typical masculine man, started to investigate how I fell. Did you staple that panel before you stepped on it ? I was seeing stars, and my conscious, logical mind was not running at full speed, as I had taken a lot of sun that day, and was in a bit of a shock. Ummm….I think so, and then I clumsily tried to explain my hypothesis quickly constructed without luck. He offered me some water, and I took a gulp. I started to roll from side to side slowly, and then pull my legs towards my chest, and then roll onto a side and get up into a kneeling position. I felt very satisfied with my life, calm and greatful that I didn’t break a bone, paralyze myself, stop breathing, or die. I made a full-bodied hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sound like some actor would after savouring a sip of NESCAFE on a Hawaiian beach with sunglasses and beach umbrella overhead. Life is good.

The medics came, I charismatically greeted them each « bonjour ! » and then the policemen came. They asked me the questions and told me not to get up and from then on I surrendered to the procedures of the social servants up until I removed my hospital patient gown and relieved myself in the washroom. I walked to the ambulance by my own efforts, and sat in constant back and butt pain in the stretcher. I got Xrays, nobody spoke English, but I am getting good at this French thing, you see ? The Xrays showed that my skeleton appeared to be in working order. The nurse gave me a minor painkiller, and I took it before my critical mind kicked in. Then it kicked in after, and I said to myself : don’t worry, it is water under the bridge, let ‘s see if I can detect the drug taking effect in my body. I was too fatigued to end that thought with an exclamation mark…

Stephanie’s father picked me up and took me home, and later on Stephanie Tiger Balmed my back, right tricep and left butt cheek and her parents provided me with the first homeopathic medicine I ever ingested in my life, followed by a dinner of Tart Alsacianne (a savory pie of thin crust topped with cream cheese, onion and bacon bits).

When you fall of the horse, you get back on the horse. I judge this age-old saying as one to be followed contextually. For example, when the 210 pound Armenian’s head pummeled my ribs just above my heart and drove me into the ground during a no-equipment tackle football game, I decided football was not a wise sport to engage in. So I didn’t get back on that horse. Carpentry is another thing. I will get right back on that horse, if I am ready, after 4 days of RnR and complete my volunteer thing.

Stephanie began her job at the vineyard today (she will be producing Cognac, Pineau, red and white wines, grape juice, and perhaps wildcrafted meals). It is in a beautiful hilly forested area near the border of Charente Maritime (where we are living) and Charente, the department which houses the town of Cognac. She likes it so far, and the farmer couple seem very amiable.

Cheers, (and this is how they spelled my name at the hospital,)

« Moricio Sebastien »