falling

My last post on skateboarding reminded me of this, from Geoff Nicolson's excellent The Lost Art of Walking, previously mentioned here:

The older you get, the bigger deal it is to fall down. When you're a kid you can hit the deck, skin your knees, bleed, and be up playing again in five minutes. The older falling man is so much more vulnerable. He's less supple, less resilient, less accustomed to the experience. He feels far more pain and humiliation.

So true. I have a palpable fear of falling. Frozen pavements in the winter cause me great anxiety, particularly in this city of so many hills. Even in a mild frost I'll edge carefully along while others, in far less outdoor-suited shoes, seem to walk normally without slipping. And yet, I can't remember this ever being a problem as a child walking to school.