Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Fucking Up: Blood Blood Everywhere

I have become worried about my daughter over the last couple of days.  She is still young now but with our current environment there is the expectation that she will always be under parental supervision.  I have her in the morning and drop her off to teachers at school, they have her until the evening when my wife gets her and she is with us until bed.  She hangs out with us on weekends and everything is very safe.  She wont be snatched away!  But also she won't fuck up and that worries me more than you can know.

A mistake you understand is better than a success you don't is sort of a motto for me.  Mistakes are great!  Fucking up is something at which I excel.  Largely fucking up is where my life shaping epiphanies and foundational lessons were learned.  So my kid never fucking up is a thought with some concern for me.

Blood Blood Everywhere (The big forearm slide of 84)
This incident happened back when I was living in North San Jose.  My friends and I were pretty fascinated by the creek that ran through our little neighborhood.  From my house with a short walk you could cross over the freeway from Capewood over to Trimble, near Northwood school.  Right off of the overpass you could go around the fence and walk into the creek.  From there you had an entire world you could play in.  There was even a field full of abandoned chimneys in one direction.  Heading the other way you would quickly pass under the 680 freeway, this was like magic to us kids, and further up toward the foothills. 

One day I had put it into my head that I needed to walk up to Majestic School all via the creek.  I walked from my house, alone as I often worried that my little journeys would end up sucking.  I liked to go solo before inviting anyone.  I passed over the freeway, into the creek and back under.  So far everything was good I was up on the far side walking along the top of the now concrete creek the sun was shining, even the birds were not mocking me... for now.

Reaching the gate near Cropley I was left perplexed.  how do I get down the creek had dropped from a few feet deep to a decent little drop.  I attempted climbing down but being fat, offish and clumsy that quickly proved a poor idea.   My solution was far poorer.  I would slide down, but not on my butt.  I would use my forearms so my pants would not get harmed.  I am not sure of why I thought my pants were so important, they may have been my prized Levi's, the only pair of pants my grandma had not sewn.  The slide while painless at the time ground down the flesh on my forearms leaving both bloody in wide channels.  This was one of those moment I realized, I fucked up!

Learning
Well that was dumb.  I was not in the bottom of a creek I had no real idea how to get out of being concrete and I slow and fat.  Quickly I reasoned I could just walk to the dirt sections up by the townhouses where my cousin's lived.  It was a little further and I bled profusely but it appeared the best option.  My wounds stopped bleeding after a few minutes of walking.  There was another section that ducked under the street but I was already in the creek so no worry there.  

The earliest point that allowed me to leave the creek would put me directly on path toward my cousins house.  Somehow I just wanted to be alone and not reminded of my stupidity so I continued walking.  I was aware that I should wash out the scrapes as the creek was essentially a large open gutter and not clean.  Almost there I finished walking to Majestic school.  Washing off my arms in the open drinking fountain, I was relieved.  I had done what I set out to do, blood and all.

My arms healed, I never even had a scar just some gross scabs that healed before I knew it.  The pain was annoying not bad and truly nothing compared to dialysis.  I did what I set out to, stupidity didn't stop me.  This was dumb and completely my own fault but I overcame the crap that came my way and I finished what I set out to do.

I will probably write a few more of these, I fucked up a lot as a kid.  
 

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