Je suis tombe du mon velo.

An intellectual is a man who doesn't know how to park a bike. - Spiro Agnew

Being fair, I have my own and quiet struggles. I spent two weeks in Paris azure at the edges, and there were times when I was downright blue. (Who knew that Paris is such a lonely town ... ?) There was a lot going on inside my head and my heart, and ... well, I perceive the romance of a woebegone American slouching pensive through Paris. Coughing, and in the rain, no less. I think that isolation had been exigent for quite some time. In some small fashion I suppose you might say I went to Paris to be unhappy. And to smile at the mundane inevitability of it all.

It took me weeks to figure out the money, how to use the phone, what to say at the post office. Even the little text boxes that pop up on the computer are in French. Doesn't sound daunting, but it can be. I've gotten cell phone service, bought groceries, ordered many meals, navigated the Paris Metro (that last is actually quite logical - props to the French), had my hair cut twice, bought books and maps, mailed packages, and talked more politics than at any time previous, and all in a debauched version of a language I don't really speak. Don't come to Europe thinking that everyone speaks English. Not at all. (If anything, everyone speaks Italian. I'm convinced they'll conquer the universe and we'll all be wearing Dolce and Gabana and being fastidious about espresso.)

To round out the list, I've also received medical treatment. From a school nurse, who was convinced until persuaded otherwise that I was an exchange student at the high school. Ehhhhhhh. So, on my way to school last Friday morning, as I tried to navigate a particularly ferocius rush of agressive Toulousain traffic without crashing into any of the chic teenagers thronging the pavement outside their school, I hit the curb at the wrong angle and tumbled off my bike. I was rescued immediately by five or six passers-by, who swooped down immediately like angels of mercy with hopelessly French brows furrowed under fabulous haircuts, waving graceful anxious fingers in my face and muttering at me in worried French. Despite my thick-tongued protests, they tucked away my bike whisked me off to the school infirmary, where the baffled nurse in white frock, cap, and kicky red sandals tut-tutted as she salved my wounds and bandaged my torn knee, while I tried to explain that I was a university student and that I didn't have any parents she could call. (Once I finally showed her on my ID card how old I was, she was so charmingly apologetic I couldn't believe - "Desolee! Desolee!" over and over, with her hand over her heart like she'd mistaken me for a Belgian.)

Most importantly, the bike is fine, which is the first thing anyone asks. And I'm alright, as well; on the mend. I sort of tore my face up - left chunks of nose, lip, and chin on the sidewalk, and now that my hair's short I've nothing to hide behind, but a week later I'm looking much less like the Phantom of the Opera. I got the obligatory cyclist scrapes on my left hand, where you reflexively try to catch yourself. I somehow managed to bruise one arm and both knees, though only one was scraped up. But everyone says I look tough. I scratched the lenses of my favorite (and only) sunglasses, and ripped the knee of my favorite jeans, and I'm still wearing both, so coupled with the war wounds, I certainly feel like a badass. :)

Kharim, this half-Algerian, half-French guy (they always tell you that: "Buht mai muhzair, mai muhzair eehz French) who has been staying at our house and who travels the world on his bike, just waved a casual hand when he saw me and said, "Eh. Velo. Eeht 'appens."

Falling, though. It's a funny thing. You know it's coming, always. Like love. You realize its ineludibility at the precise moment that you're utterly powerless to do anything to prevent it.

We're falling all the time, you know? Fall off a bike; fall in love; fall ill; fall from grace. In French, you even "fall pregnant", as though the lady in question strolled out the door to the market one morning, stumbled on a roller skate, and found herself with child.

Really, we're falling every moment. With each step we fall, and catch ourselves with the next. And - usually - we don't even miss a beat.