For some reason, some people (you know who you are) have the perception that I’m clumsy. Yeah, okay, I drop things, which always seem to roll under whatever nearby piece of furniture will render them most unreachable. And sometimes I spill things, but in my defense, I believe the travel mug, or adult sippy cup, actually enhances one’s ability to spill.

But mostly, this perception of clumsiness has come about because I fall. The boyfriend has teased me for years about my tendency to slip, stumble, and hit the ground. I always thought he was exaggerating—and then I started thinking about the falls I’ve taken in the past sixteen and a half years. We won’t go back farther than that because I have to keep this list manageable.

In the spring, Taos has a lot of mud. We don’t, however, have a lot of sidewalks or paved parking lots. One spring, I pulled into the gravel parking lot of a friend’s gallery, got out of my car, and slipped in the mud. Taos dirt has a high clay content, which makes the mud especially slick, so as I tried to get to my feet, I slipped and fell repeatedly. (This event constitutes one fall. Please reference previous note regarding keeping this list manageable.) I wallowed in that mud, which coated everything, thickly and nastily—my clothes, my hands, my shoes . . . I think there was even some in my hair. For years afterward, when I drove past that parking lot, I could see a dark cloud of profanity swirling over the spot where I fell.

In the winter, Taos has a lot of ice. Paved parking lots aren’t necessarily an advantage in the ice, except they usually get snowplowed more regularly. Still, there are always those shady spots, the proverbial place where the sun don’t shine and the snowplow don’t go (why? Why?). Ice is the cruelest fall. It’s hard and it’s cold. A fall on ice jolts you so hard that your teeth hurt. I’ve fallen once on the ice in a paved parking lot (my signature tailbone landing) and once on the ice in a gravel parking lot (landing on my hands and knees, which sprained my wrist—the treatment for which was the insult-to-injury application of ice).

In the summer, I especially enjoy photography—attempting to catch the incredible light that made Taos one of the most renowned art colonies in the world. One summer, while photographing a friend’s garden, I was looking through the viewfinder of the camera and backing away from my subject, trying to frame the image just so—and I fell backward into a fire pit. Fortunately, since it was summer, there was no fire. But I was folded up like a lawn chair between the wall of the fire pit and the pile of logs in the middle. In horseman’s parlance, I was cast—in a position where I couldn’t get my legs underneath me to stand up again. My friend had to haul me out of the pit. At least it wasn’t necessary to shoot me.

Hiking is also a popular activity around here in the summer. I’ve fallen at least twice while hiking, once when I lost my footing on a wet rock (the boyfriend, behind me, watched me ping-pong between the two trees on either side of the rock until I finally came to rest on the ground), and another time on a dew-damp railroad tie that was on the trail to prevent erosion. (Other hiking adventures: (1) sliding down a steep embankment, treacherous with tiny pebbles that rolled underfoot, and getting cactus spines embedded in my ass and (2) winding up spread-eagled on four boulders in the middle of the Rio Grande, which was rushing with snow melt. Somehow I got back to the bank without getting a drop of water on me. That’s core strength, baby.)

Those are the outdoor falls. Here are the indoor falls:

In my living room, I tripped over an electrical cord that was in plain sight and landed smack on my face. Another time, I slipped on my freshly waxed floor in the living room of a different house, and—reminiscent of the mud incident—could not get up because the floor was so slippery (boyfriend to the rescue).

At the office, I fell down a flight of stairs, which, fortunately, was not a very long flight. I later fell up the same flight of stairs, which I like to think takes special talent.

Oh, and recently, I took a step back at a friend’s house, not realizing there was a step up behind me. I just sat down—unexpectedly—on the step. It wasn’t a fall that demonstrated spectacular form, but I believe it should be included on this list because—well, it’s my list.

That’s eleven falls in sixteen and a half years, an average of one fall every 18 months. Even if you factor in the dropping and the spilling, the slide through cactus spines, the boulder incident . . . and the time I broke my pinky finger when I accidentally hit it with a six-pound mallet, sustaining an impressive displaced fracture . . . I don’t think that constitutes clumsiness. Or maybe it does, but just, you know, regular clumsiness, not extraordinary clumsi . . .

Well, hell.