I’m okay but yesterday (September 16, 2025) I took a fall. It was right in the middle of the sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan as I was walking to the train at Penn Station. It go me thinking about age and gravity.
I can remember when I was young hearing about some old person getting really hurt in a fall. Broken faces, broken hips, and broken bones are some of the terrible things that would happen to people when they hit the ground. It always struck me as weird because when you’re a kid you’re always falling down and then getting back up. It made me a little bit scared of getting old.
I fell on the ground probably because of an uneven piece of the sidewalk. I’m not even one hundred percent sure. I suspect that because many a time I’ve stumbled because of that. Those NYC sidewalks are made of big slabs of concrete. Sometimes those slabs shift over the years and the edge of one of them can be an inch higher than the next one. That edge can catch your foot. I’ve stumbled because of that many times but this is the first time I’ve fallen like this.
I played touch football for a lot of my life. We used to play at lunchtime in Madison Park back in the early 1990s when I worked at Marvel Comics and then in the late 1990s we played some pickup games with the staff of Wizard magazine. I played into my late 30s. There is falling all the time when playing touch football but it’s falling on grass and usually you are ready for it. I was not ready for that fall on the sidewalk.
Another factor in the fall was probably that I was carrying three bags that day. I had a backpack on, a shoulder bag, and a grocery bag in my hand. Plus I had my camera in my other hand. I was actually having fun carrying all that stuff and walking. It felt like I was ruck sacking up the street. I was making good time too. Maybe that was the problem. I was walking too fast.
I was always good at falling back in my younger days. By that I mean that I knew how to fall down without getting hurt. My body would automatically spread out and try to land not on just one point of impact but on many. I had fast reflexes and it wasn’t even a conscious process. I’d land on my forearms and the heals of my hands to spread out the impact.
I fell another time a couple of years ago in my bedroom. I was okay but it was such a stupid fall that it lodged in my memory. I must have been impatient and in a hurry because I fell putting my pants on after a bike ride. I was changing out of my riding clothes and into my regular ones and as I was walking as I was trying to put on my pants. Why didn’t I just stop? I never try to put my pants on while I’m moving. I hit the floor quickly (unhurt) and then felt stupid. I was lucky that I didn’t hit anything (like a piece of furniture) on the way down.
That’s another thing about falling. The speed. Back in my youth it would sometimes feel like I was in slow motion as I was falling. This would help me as I broke my fall. I can remember one time specifically when I bruised my knee pretty bad when this happened.
It was a time when I was playing a touch football game in the snow. There were a few inches of it on the ground. I happened to fall and I can still see myself in that fall. I was falling face first into the ground but then I turned my head and spread out my arms and legs so I was fairly flat. Being that I turned my head I could see the underside of my body falling. I guess the snow messed up my body’s sense of where the ground was because I can still picture my left knee cutting through the snow and hitting the ground first. That really hurt.
That sense of being in slow motion has left me anytime I fall. I turned fifty nine this summer so I guess age made it leave. With this sidewalk fall everything happened quickly. I was up and then I was down. Fast. Except for one moment.
Usually if I stumble on the sidewalk my legs try to get themselves back under me. That’s what stumbling is. This time I don’t even think they did. I didn’t even feel myself stumble. All of a sudden I was just going over.
I did manage not to fall on my face. There was no sense of slow motion but I did get my body turned so that my right shoulder took most of the impact. I’ve got a lot of red scrapes on that shoulder. The heel of my right hand has some scrapes too. I also have a bruise on the side of my right arm. The heel of my left hand has a little soreness plus there is a fingernail sized scrape on the back of my left hand. I have no idea how that got there. It’s all a blur.
The one moment that I can remember as a slow motion moment was right after my shoulder hit the ground. I somehow thought to myself that the fall was over. Then my head whipped a little and hit the concrete. It didn’t hit hard, it didn’t make me see stars, but remember thinking that I could have done without that. It was like an exclamation point on the fall.
After I fall a kind stranger pickup my reading glasses that flew off the top of my head and offered me a hand getting up. He asked if I was okay and I thought I was so he went on his way. I continued on my way too. I was way more shocked than hurt. My Apple watch even detected my fall and asked me if I was okay. It gave me a panic button in case I was hurt. I dismissed it.
I generally keep myself in good shape. I watch what I eat and exercise regularly. I cycle five times a week and even walk for exercise. I think that had a lot to do with me not getting too hurt in the fall. But it was scary and the ideas of falls get scarier and scarier as I get older. So I’m going to try to keep my feet under me.