After three months of walking across Europe, I met my daughter in Paris for a week of macrons and cheese. This week was everything I dreamed my first international trip with my daughter would be . . .
. . . Until the day before we were to fly back to the U.S. That's when I tripped and slammed face-first onto the cobblestones along Rue des Bernardins. When I came to my senses some time later in a busy Paris ER -- my face was blown up like a balloon with four small fractures -- my calm and collected daughter (a nursing student) assured me I was not dying. I didn’t believe her for at least a few hours.
Six weeks later, the bruises are gone, the swelling has all but disappeared, the bones are mostly healed. Still, I keep juxtaposing the tens of thousands of steps I took as an insight-seeking pilgrim against that one, faulty step. I’m not sure what it is, but I'm sure there is irony here.
Maybe it is this: A single step might be as powerful as a million, depending how you land.
A Calculated Question
If you walk
1,000 miles
Or,
Put another way,
869 nautical miles,
Or,
1,609,344 meters,
Or,
1,609 kilometers,
Or
1,760,000 yards
Or,
5,280,000 feet,
Or,
63,360,000 inches,
Or,
5.215529e-11 parsecs,
Or,
8,000 furlongs,
Or,
1.609344e+16 angstroms,
Or,
880,000 fathoms,
Or,
1.609344e+12 microns,
Or,
1.609344e+18 picometers,
Or,
333 leagues,
Over 3-plus months,
Or,
More exactly, 110 days,
All without incident,
All without injury,
But then take one step
That turns into a trip
That lands you on your face
Full force --
5 feet 9 inch object
weighing 120 pounds
at a speed of 21.37 km/h
delivering 951.67 joules --
In the middle of Paris
Which results in 4 broken bones
And quite a hematoma
With considerable swelling,
Does that 1 step
Weigh as much or more
On the grand scale
as the 2,000,000 before it?
~ Cheryl Murfin, three months after the Camino, 1.5 months after the faceplant
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