Bridging the Gap

It seems like I always had a million excuses NOT to write the blog, but I didn't think I'd get to the point where I'd find an excuse TO write it.  Having a broken knee and a cast that goes from your crotch (is groin a better word?) to your ankle seems like a pretty good reason to start up again. And a prognosis of 29 more days (I've already survived 8) means you can check back in every now and then because I'll probably have a few more things to say.
The accident was scary enough to make me wet my pants.  My first thought was that there was blood gushing from between my legs.  My stomach and everything felt okay, but I was sure I must have been hit hard enough to cause internal bleeding (but if it was coming out between my legs then it wouldn't really be internal, would it?).  Then somehow I calmed down enough to figure out that I'd wet my pants.  The good news is, at least it didn't scare the crap out of me.  (I suppose that might be better left out, but it made me laugh.) 
Here's what happened.  I was riding my bike home from an English lesson.  I had just crossed the pedestrian only (and bikes, I think) old wooden bridge in Bassano.  It's one of my favorite things to do.  The pavement of the bridge is cobblestone and marble. The stones are so big and round that it's not easy to walk on them, especially for the beautiful Italian ladies in their beautiful Italian high heels.  So, in addition to the cobblestones, they laid nice strips of marble to make the bridge a bit more user-friendly for the Bassanese and the American English teacher on her bike.
When I got to the other side of the bridge the street was crowded.  It's a place that's always crowded. It's a meeting point for locals, a photo stop for tourists and the perfect place to stand in the road and have an apertif.  It really feels like you're in the middle of a little piazza instead of in an intersection where an occasional car passes through.  Unfortunately, I found myself there at the same time as the occasional car.  I saw it coming in my direction and I was sure the driver also saw me.  It only took a second, and a thud, to realize she didn't see me. That's when I wet my pants.
I untangled myself from my bike and stood up.  It was like trying to stand up after a fall on the rope-tow when I was learning how to ski.  You don't really know where to put your hands to push yourself up and your legs don't really work because they're attached to your skis.  In this case I couldn't put my hands anywhere because I was covered in bike and it seemed like my legs (at least one anyway) didn't really work.  You get the idea.  All I knew was that I wanted to be up because I thought that if I was up, I wasn't dead.
I looked around and realized I was definitely the center of attention.  Not in the way I like to be when I'm riding through a piazza in a mini-skirt licking a gelato.  Everyone was staring, but no one was helping.  (Then last week when I'd come upon a car accident-- before I closed my eyes and plugged my ears like I do if I think we're about to hit a squirrel--I learned that Italians don't get too close to accidents.  I had my eyes opened long enough to see panicked people out of their cars, but no one near the body on the side of the road.  According to my friends, which I realize is one very small slice of the way Italians think, no one gets involved for fear of being sued later.)  So now I understand why no one was rushing to collect my personal items that had flown from my unbuckled leather bag in my wicker bike basket. The bungee to hold the bag in the basket doesn't really work if the bag isn't closed.  The intersection was full of my stuff.
I saw my iPod in it's little felted bag that I bought at the Amnesty International shop in Paris and one of the tubes of my minty lipstuff that I got for Christmas last year and batteries that had blown out of my smashed bike light and a little piece of metal that I actually thought was a piece of the car that I'd broken with my leg and wanted to keep (only to realize later that it was part of my bike).  I finally asked someone to collect my stuff and then someone finally asked me if I was okay.
Yes.  I was okay.  At the moment, I'd decided I was even okay enough to walk back across the bridge to make it easier for my friend to pick me up on the less congested side of town.  Wasn't that nice of me?  It was a beautiful night for a little walk with a broken knee. I appreciated the marble paths on the bridge even more. I remember looking dreamily
at a faded old building on the river, that I've looked at a hundred times, taken a hundred photos of and only recently found out that one of my students owns it. On the third floor there's a tiny little apartment with a tiny little balcony looking out at the river, the bridge and the 1000 year old town of Bassano.  And there's a tiny little chance that I can rent it in January.  For a minute I'd forgotten that I'd wet my pants, scuffed up my all-time favorite German shoes, destroyed my bike and was about to embark on the adventure of a journey through the Italian medical system.  That's the magic of Italy.  It's easy to forget about real life for awhile.  But only for awhile.