The Day I Fell … Up

And how it changed my Life

The shadows gather differently in big cities than they do elsewhere. Tall buildings, tightly packed create their own atmosphere; weather systems that are colder, darker and more apt to change without warning, than those where trees are in abundance and space is apportioned fairly among the humans that live there.

In concrete and brick cities, life is lived vertically. It grows organically only through construction. The careful planning of up and out. Where more space, is relative to more income, and privacy, like air on a confined ship, is parceled out according to need.

I was born a child of Brooklyn. A concrete and brick landscape that housed as many unique faces and interesting places that a child of seven could assimilate.

There were endless permutations of people and streets, cars and sidewalks, screaming voices and whispers in the corridors of public school and churches. There were grays and blues, blacks and whites of indeterminate shades, coloring the urban-scape like a Jackson Pollack canvass.

Everyone was everything, and everything was mine to view and think about and filter slowly through a mind that was willing to bend — just to see how far an idea could stretch until it snapped.

And finally, one day it did, when we moved away, without ceremony. Without so much as, a by your leave, we were up and out and residing in a quiet, tree-lined place, bereft of children, where imagination became a vital tool in my survival as there was little else to do. No faces to study. No laughter to listen to and ponder. I was a refugee from Brooklyn and a stranger in a new land.

Density is not just the closeness of souls but the collecting of points of view. The ability to move incrementally in inches and see a different side of the same world with every turn. I loved watching people. Seeing what they saw. What made them smile or frown. I was a hungry boy left in a land of thin wafers and plain water and my first days were filled with bitterness and a sense of betrayal.

Why did we move? What did I do to deserve being sent to the gulags? Yes, even at seven I knew what that sense of isolation felt like and had a name for it. I had names for everything.

Anyway, at seven we’re flexible. The psyche has yet to solidify and hope springs eternal. For me, hope took the form of a red bicycle that became my chariot. My Aladdin’s magic carpet that I rode through the streets, swept past the images of isolation and moved northward into a world of imagination and intrigue. Where adventures were everywhere and everywhere was anything, I wanted it to be.

Blue skies and white clouds became dark foreboding castles drifting through space. Populated by dragons and Valkyries setting the tone for a day that became night and a night that was filled with dreams that I viewed whenever I wished.

But scarcity is a dangerous thing. An imagination needs images and colors and people! Especially people — walking and riding, running and driving. Where, it doesn’t matter, as long as they are in motion and so I moved. And kept moving, day in and day out. Riding to stay just ahead of the past that kept whistling my way. That kept hounding my steps, forcing me to look back and lament:

Look where you just came from.

My life grew darker and more focused on the roads. The black asphalt that was everywhere and led nowhere that I wanted to go.

But I rode and chased and lifted my two-wheeled carpet to heights just to get a better view of my world. Just to see what I could turn it into.

But streets are streets and houses are stiff and inflexible things, that resist bending to a child’s imagination. And as I rode past them. As my red bike blazed new trails this way and that and I imagined, deeply and achingly, that they would turn into flying ships that would take me far away into the clouds, into space and beyond. To a different world where children ruled and happiness was not so scarce and expensive — and I, could finally fly free without restraint or worry.

And then I crashed into a concrete barrier, next to a drain and flew up and over …

Higher and higher, until the world became untethered and I became a soaring bird. But like all birds, they must return to earth and I did — with a thud.

The soft green grass that I had ridden over, time and again, was not as soft as I had imagined. Not as forgiving as I would have liked it to be at that moment. It set my bones to rattling, my mind to spinning and my point of view to be forever altered.

I fell up … into the sky and watched the white clouds scampering across the horizon. I saw birds hovering and staring down at me. Once among them, now forever grounded and longing to go back.

I heard cars on nearby streets moving and turning, but not once slowing down to take a look at me. I was invisible. There, but not. Among the flowers and weeds and gravel that lined the street, but somehow distant and out of sight.

Slowly, I began to move. To return to earth, first physically, now mentally. The dull ache in my head reminded me that I had gone away. For a second, for an hour, I couldn’t tell. But I was happy to return. To be back among the living — the few that I could actually observe. But happy nonetheless.

My bike!

Was fine. A few scratches. A few dings. Just like me.

I didn’t get up — just sat up. I looked around and as the world returned to focus, I felt whole again. Alone and on an empty street. Quiet, inside my own thoughts — but that was okay.

A bird flew down and landed next to the drain and looked at me. I smiled. Maybe checking that I was okay. Maybe thanking me for the show. He flew off and I stood up.

A little wobbly. A little scared.

But I was no longer alone. I had me. And if that was all I ever had, that would be okay.

Why that thought entered my seven-year-old head, I don’t know. How I had grown so existential at such an early age — no clue. But there it was. A nugget. A piece of wisdom sent down from on high, as I drifted back down to earth.

As my world, literally stopped spinning, it was there and I held onto it.

For my time in exile had just begun. There were seven more years of small streets, small towns, small schools and a distinct and gnawing lack of things to observe. But I managed.

I took from my experience two distinct thoughts.

I would never truly be alone.

And, I would always make it through.

The years past, the landscape changed and I returned to Brooklyn. Not the same, exile will do that to a person. But stronger. More resolute.

And loneliness? Was to remain my partner for some time yet. Would never truly leave. But it wasn’t an enemy any longer. Just a reminder. That things change. Life goes up, but then comes back down. And no doubt, that’s the way it will always be.

Joe Luca is a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Including Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. Thank you for stopping by.

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