Welcome to WEP's Blogfest for May [=Write-Edit-Publish, formerly 'Romantic Friday Writers'] Challenge for 21-14 May 2014 - 'Failure - or is it?':
'Tur i oturen' is a Swedish expression, which literally means, 'Good luck in bad luck'. It's what you say when things go wrong, but by some miracle, you have fared well, considering what could have happened.
I had reason to say this on Monday May 5th, when I tripped and fell on the pavement, at the tram stop on the high street, on my face.
I was out shopping with the children, Elisabet, soon ten, and Erik, twelve. They needed new clothes and we got caught in the make-up department of Hennes & Mauritz, buying lipstick and nail polish for ourselves and as gifts.
Instead of doing what we usually do when shopping, that is, taking the baby-carriage to transport all of our new treasures home, I just thought I could carry it all and take the tram home. (I don't own a car.) I had six huge shopping bags (the kind with handles or hand-holes) with children's clothes, three in each hand, plus holding Elisabet's hand. Erik rode his bicycle home, but we took his things with us.
Elisabet and I left the shopping mall, stood on the high street and saw the tram roll into place.
'Will we get on before it leaves the stop?'
Elisabet and I ran across the street behind the tram and saw the doors open and people getting on and then the doors closing. Panting, we were just outside of the door, but before I could get close enough to press the open-button, I tripped and fell. I saw the square concrete blocks of the ground coming up at me - fast. It hurt badly when I hit it. Did I brace my fall? I could not remember. I had so much to carry and Elisabet did not see what had happened.
I just lay still. I used the bags of clothing as a pillow and just remained lying there on the ground, while kindly passers-by asked me if I was alright. I wasn't sure. The driver of the tram called emergency services and did not continue his route until the ambulance had arrived. I got up and sat on the waiting-bench and started to feel my face with my hands.
According to the paramedic, I landed well, considering that I hit a concrete floor. I hit one side of my chin, which was bleeding and swollen. Half of my face was numb. (That feeling you get at the dentist's when you get local anesthesia.) My lips were bleeding. I probably looked like a prize-fighter or a battered-wife.
The paramedics checked me over and asked if I wanted to be taken to the hospital. I looked at Elisabet and decided to not put her through the long wait at the emergency room. 'Check me out now, and take me home, if you can.'
'You are really lucky.' I was told. My teeth were in tact. I had fallen on the fattiest part of my face. I could have broken my jar or fractured some other part of my face or pushed my nose in. My jaw could have been pulled out of joint. I had no trouble opening my mouth, even though there was some internal bleeding there.
I sprained my right thumb, which means that maybe I did brake the fall a little. (I have had to hold a pen between my index and long finger in order to write, immediately and a few days after the accident.)
The ambulance drove me to the tram stop where we would have got off to get home. They are allowed to drive where other vehicles are not. Only police and the fire brigade can do that as well.
Elisabet and I thanked the ambulance driver and paramedic and called them Angels. Thank goodness they are there when you need them. I was going to be alright. 'Call us if you get a headache or start vomiting.' But I did not have a concussion either.
Elisabet went home to her father, two blocks away. I took some pain-killer and went to bed. Later, before I went out to do errands again, I put foundation make-up on the blackish blue bruise on my chin. But it could not hide the swelling. I wore dark red lip stick to hide the scabs on my lips. I don't normally wear make-up at all. It seemed ironic that we had just left the make-up department before the accident.
At home in bed, I thought of everything bad that could have happened, but didn't: like biting off my tongue or breaking my teeth or having them fall out later on because of root-damage mot nerve-damage. (I know someone, who was in an auto-accident and had to get false teeth because of this.) Not even the scrape-sore under my chin will leave a permanent scar.
I was so lucky.
Now what does this have to do with writing and getting published? I am working on a secret writing-project and I am so superstitious that I can't say anything about it yet. I am still working 'with the door closed', as Stephen King has described it. It may flop. But I am going to see it through. It might work. Maybe I'll get lucky again.
[This is NOT a fictional text. This is what actually happened to me, as if I tore out a page from my diary.]
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Best wishes,
Anna
First Commenter:
Sally
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