How Dimity Got a Gazelle for Her 54th Birthday

The short answer? Two bike accidents. One that could've been much worse than it was, and one that broke my left wrist. 

But let me back up. 

I turned 54 in early May. It was a birthday without much fanfare; I had just finished up a four-city stop for The 27th Mile and was getting ready to go do a recon trip on the Katy Trail with Grant, my husband.

Birthdays, to me, are more carrot cake than champagne—and especially those in my mid-50's. I don't need fanfare. I love cards, a small gift, flowers. Things that make the day sparkle.

But the universe had other plans for me—and they didn't come wrapped up in a bow. 

Part of my four-city book tour included seeing Ben, Thing #2, in Philadelphia for the weekend. The spring weather at the end of April in Philly is sublime, so instead of taking a Lyft or walking everywhere, I sign up for the Indego, the city bike app. 

For a $20 monthly fee, I could ride wherever I wanted. The wide bike paths are well marked, and the Indego bikes have baskets so I could stock my Air B'n'B with real food. When I lived in NYC, I used to daydream about being a bike messenger, so riding in an urban environment is my jam.

Paige: she knit her (beautiful) sweater, plus made her bag and the adorable one she gifted me.
So crafty + talented! 

I am returning from a breakfast with Paige Sato, an athlete in the 27th Mile and the creator of amazing things from repurposed quilts. It is misting, and the roads are fairly empty on this Saturday morning. Perhaps because of the lack of "real" traffic, a driver opens her car door right in front of me. Thankfully, I wasn't going too fast and I was able to turn the bike a little to the left to avoid a straight-on collision, but I still made significant contact with her door.

I don't just hit the pavement. I body slam it. I am wearing a raincoat and jeans, and amazingly, no fabric was rips. Underneath though, I can feel bad road rash stinging my left arm and left knee, and my right thumb is already swelling and my left shoulder, aching. I'm wearing a helmet, and count myself very fortunate not to have hit my head.

The driver who opened the door is not an English speaker. Although she is clearly very sorry and concerned, she isn't in a place to really help me. I stand myself up, figure I am more or less ok, and pedal back to my place for a long nap.

I finish the book tour, swim with Merle (wearing XL waterproof band-aids on my wounds), but feel a little jangled the rest of the trip.   

I'm back home for May 3, my birthday. Two pieces of carrot cake are chilling in the fridge, and I draw 13 cards from Kim Krans' Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck: 1 card for each month, plus 1 card for the full year. I think of them as energy guideposts, where to put my focus.

This is the second year I've forecast my year via four-leggeds and scaly beings. With the sun shining outside and a mug of green tea nearby, I turn my month cards one by one: fire ants mix with an elk mix with a frog and a beaver. Then I turn over my center card, my main card, for my 54th year. It's a gazelle. 

I also draw a card almost daily—I think of it as a daily horoscope—but haven't drawn the gazelle card much, so I'm not familiar with its description. I anticipate something about collecting your herd/community, keeping your footsteps light, staying agile. Instead, the gazelle centers on an over-active heightened awareness, how they spend too much of their focus worrying about predators in the wild. 

"When this card appears," writes Krans, "It's time to get back to the present moment. Sit down, find your breath, and acknowledge the bounty that surrounds you." She goes on to recommend things like yin yoga, a cozy home, and good food to encourage your inner gazelle. 

I admit, I was bummed. Last year, the elephant (unstoppable, auspicious, wise) was my key card and I like—and was looking for—action, not chicken chili and extra long savasana. Still, I duly record the gazelle and my 54th year flock in my journal, and place the gazelle on top of my desk to watch over me. 

The Katy Trail—and two book stops in Kansas City and St. Louis—are up in a few days. The tour is a blast, reconnecting with BAMRs and having important conversations with others on the cusp of losing running. Once on the trail, Grant and I ride side by side as we listen to birds, frogs, and otherwise nature bathe. It's pretty quiet between the two of us.

As we get closer to St. Charles, our final destination. I hear him laugh. "Did you see that sign?," he asks, "It said don't take our barn cats."

I mean, have you ever seen a sign like this? Me neither. 

I laugh, and immediately (of course) think: #socialmedia. I've got to have it: it's a perfect slice of middle Missouri. It'll be perfect in a Katy Trail collage.

I stop my bike to circle back. One turn is fine. The second? Unable to get my foot unclipped from my pedal, I topple so very, very slowly—the total opposite of my Philly crash—and land on my left palm. My wrist zings, but I'm able to finish our eight miles, flipping my palm up and down along the way to assure myself I haven't done more damage to my body.

Shelton, one of the barn cats we did not take.
(The owner saw my fall—of course she did—and introduced us to her feline.)

The wrist, I learn the next day, is broken. 

It's not a bad break, but still, a bone has been compromised. And when the nurse sees the wound on my arm, she asks if that happened at the same time. "No, different fall," I admit, "I haven't had the best luck on the bike lately."

I am doing what I've always done: minimizing my pain and energy depletion so I can continue to move forward, searching for what's next. I remember a beautiful wooden bench in Santa Fe I passed multiple times as I walked our dog (after, of course, running five or so miles). Its inscription read, "There is more to life than increasing its speed. —Ghandi."

At the time, the idea of slowing down felt like chugging a handle of vodka: awful. There was our first house to buy, kids to have and raise, dogs to walk, articles to write, friends to make, expectations to exceed.

I've been stuck on that same high-speed cruise control setting for over twenty years. I'm the first to acknowledge all the gifts my go-go-go mentality gave me—multiple books, Another Mother Runner, lifelong friendships, consistent fitness, inspiring goals—but two bike crashes, a very honest and thoughtful conversation with my therapist ("What are you waiting for? A concussion?"), and a gazelle bounding into my birthday has me reconsidering how fast I need to live my life at age 54.

RuPaul, making herself cozy on our new runners. 

I'm actively releasing the cruise control, but slowing down is going to take some time. I don't want to abandon the essence of who I am; I just want her to move a little more slowly and with more presence. I've done yin yoga, a style where you hold one (accessible) pose for a few minutes, multiple times. I truly enjoy it; I have nowhere else to be but with my breath and in my body.

I bought new runners for our upstairs hallway to replace hand-me-downs that were over 30 years old, and have ideas for a gallery wall in our television room.

And I made a folder full of easy, nourishing meals Grant and I can eat on repeat. (This is a current fave, especially with brown rice and extra sriracha.)

Although my wrist is nearly healed, I've got a nice pink lake of a scar from my Philly below my elbow. In case I forget to heed the gazelle, ears pricked like she's watching me, a small slice of the scar is visible when I'm looking down, writing my morning pages. 

P.S. I did get one material gift, prompted by this article in the New York Times (gift link) that came out in mid-December about the top 13 gifts readers had ever received.

Predictably, the answers weren't pajamas or a kitchen gadget, but super thoughtful gifts: a Christmas tree for a family whose father was deployed; a stapler for downstairs from a husband whose wife was always climbing stairs to the office; drywall repair to a mother from a son whose teenage anger caused him to punch a hold in a wall. 

I immediately thought of our mailbox. While it is functional, it listed on splinter-causing wood, its flag was long gone, and closing its door required patience and magic. No longer.