I've come to think of grace as a way of living: of living intentionally and mindfully, with joy as a default setting, and compassion and good manners as the "how" rather than the "what".  But it has not always been so, and I've had occasion this week to reflect on some historical meanings of grace in my life.

It started on Tuesday. I had a meeting with a client, a new client.  It was a beautiful fall day, and the client was about a half-hour walk away.   So, being mindful of my intention to get more exercise, I decided to walk.  It was a glorious walk.  Flaming colours in the trees, a brilliant blue sky, and a perfect nip in the air that was only a hint through the heat of the sun.  When I was most of the way there, I fell. 

I couldn't figure out any reason for the tumble.  No potholes, no desperately uneven sidewalks.  Just a fall.   I was reminded then of how my father used to say two things about such events in my childhood.    First, he'd tell people (or me) that I was an accident looking for a place to happen.  Second, he'd say that I was the only person he knew who could trip over the patter in the linoleum.  My dad was a sweet and loving man, and there is no way on earth these things were meant to be hurtful.  And they weren't. Not really.

Anyway, on Tuesday, when I fell, I got up, assured the passers-by who had rushed to my aid that I was fine, found my glasses ten feet away.  (My glasses live on top of my head mostly, and I keep getting reminders of why I buy the kind that withstands being hurled ten feet onto concrete!)  I dusted myself off, shook my head in bemusement, and thought of my father's usual rejoinders at such falls.

Then, on the way home, I fell again.   Again I could find no reason.  I checked in with myself to see whether I was feeling unstable, or whether my blood sugar might be low.  I looked around again for a culprit cause of such a fall.  Nothing.  And this time, when I got up, I had a sense I'd done some more serious damage.  However, I was only ten minutes from home, so I limped my way home, and put ice on the now obviously-sore foot.  This time I thought of my father's rejoinders, and found myself mentally telling him to shut up.  Nice daughter!

Anyway, I was unable to put any weight at all on that foot the first evening, and only limited mobility the next.  And only today is it feeling like it's as strong as it was before all this happpened.  As it's been healing, I've been thinking of grace in the sense of  "gracefulness", the way it's applied to young girls, especially.  It meant never falling, as a minimum.   And I recall it meant looking a certain way in movement.  (I was so far from this "certain way" that my parents invested in ballet lessons for me, for three years, hoping it would "help".  In their view, it didn't help. Or at least they got less enthusiastic about it.)  I remember knowing with a profound certainty that I was not and would never be graceful.

I changed my mind about all that, at some point in my late 30s.   I came to an understanding that physical grace had to do with self-confidence, with feeling comfortable in one's own skin, and with trying to think of doing just one thing at a time.  Even walking.  Since I'm incapable of thinking of just one thing at a time, even walking, this realization didn't make me instantly graceful.  But it did make me feel considerably less awkward.

This past week, combined with the major fall and bruising that happened last month, have shaken even that level of confidence.  I'm back to the little girl, who feels like an accident looking for several places to happen.  And finding them.  I'm that child who trips over patterns in linoleum.  Or apparently flat sidewalk surfaces.  I don't suppose ballet lessons would be any more produtive at 48 than they were at 14.  So grace eludes me once more.

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