The beauty of falls that you walk away from

I fell twice crossing 89th Street, once in the middle of the street, once at the curb. I misjudged the step, crashed down on my hands and knees and chin, and once I walked into a tree branch on the path around the Central Park Reservoir and got plonked on my keister, and each time strangers rushed to my side to ask if I was okay and I said I was and jumped up but now I see these falls were a turning point in my life. Once you come crashing down, there is no longer a need to have a smart opinion about everything; you’re simply part of the human race. Your job is to be a biped rather than a quad. As Scripture says, It is God who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.And so long as you can stand up and baa, you can do comedy. I have a good sense of sentence structure and my vocabulary is exemplary. Thanks to my aunts Elsie and Margaret, I speak clearly. They listened to me recite my verse in Sunday school and said, “We could understand every word.” From Ephesians and Ecclesiastes to stand-up comedy is a hop and a jump. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit garrisonkeillor.substack.com/subscribe