I never learned to ride a bike.
The story/myth/reason/excuse I remember was that my grandfather was teaching my older sister to ride. She started to fall and when he went to catch her he hurt his back.
A patient tells me of a recurrent dream/nightmare/image/vision he has: He is in an endless canyon–just clear clean walls on all sides. No floor. No top. He is falling wildly. Frantically. madly. But there is nothing to hold on to. He jut keeps falling. Endlessly. Forever.
When my wife was in ICU for the fourth time, I was spend time with her. As the days moved on she appeared to be falling away. Going to a place I did not know. Sleeping. Unresponsive. No talking. I remember standing over her and thinking this is what a baby must feel like. Asleep. Can’t talk or communicate. Just there open to all sensations and experiences and powerless to stop any of them or even scream. It was a timeless place. Time is hard to tell in ICU. People come in and out at seemingly randomness. People do things to her. Stick things in her. Turn her. Move her. Feel her. Turn lights on and off. Empty catheter bags. Puts drugs into her. Was she there? Could she tell?
Her sister comes in and falls to pieces. “We’re losing her. We have to get her out of here.” We convince the doctors to let us take her home.
She comes back. Returns. We talk about it and she makes me promise that I will never take her back to ICU. Ever. She explains that she has come up to a line every time she has been in ICU and it has taken too much out of her. She fears that the next time she will cross that line.
A few months later she crosses that line. She is home. Falling. Falling again. Prepared to cross that line. But she has to allow herself to fall and let go of this life. She struggles briefly and is ready. She allows herself to fall and crosses the line.
I now wonder if there isn’t some primal fear in all of us of falling. Perhaps this is why we hold on so tightly–to relationships, feelings, ideas, hopes and dreams.
What would happen if we let ourselves fall. Would someone catch us? Would we fall to pieces? Would we fall in love?
Perhaps it is time for me to learn to ride a bike.
Dr. Brody