Ellen Notbohm
Tripod, Walking
When you’re a rosy-kneed child running free, imagination running rampant, born to run, there’s something you never imagine.
Then you’re an adult, hitting the ground running, running for the bus, running after children, running ahead, running late, running for health. For the long run, for the short run, running running running. And still you don’t imagine it.
It is stealth itself. It creeps up on you, running late, running on fumes, running ragged. Then one sly day you didn’t see coming, it hits you over the head with a stick. A walking stick. An “assistive device.”
A cane, by any other name. Your running days are over. You stand on a cusp. Then you step forward and begin life as a tripod.
You don’t need that third leg every day; your cocktail of aches and issues runs fickle as fate. So you learn that on the days when you walk less softly and carry a small stick, people magically sort themselves into three groups.
The Kind. They go to the effort to respect your space, slow their own steps, hold the door. They gently offer to carry or reach, and smile if you say thanks, I’ve got this. They get that it’s not all or nothing. They don’t call you honey.
The Indifferent. They maneuver around you at more speed than you can muster, paying you no mind as long as you stay in the righthand lane of life, out of the center lane, out of the passing lane. You’re no longer the passer, but the passed. They don’t even notice.
The Cruel. They can’t mask their impatience, even anger, that you’re taking up too much space and impeding their velocity. On the sidewalk, on the park path, traversing the parking lot, in the grocery aisle. They pull up closely behind you, sighing theatrically at your turtle’s pace. They lay on the horn when you take an extra quarter-minute getting out of your car, the door straying a few inches into the parking space they want. C’mon c’mon c’mon already! You’re costing them precious seconds. Your time is up, get off the stage.
You’re expected to carry your incipient impairment with grace and acquiescence. But you’re only human. You have your moment when you fantasize about accidentally letting your stick drift a few inches into their lane. You watch the tripping, the falling. You look down upon their royal prone-ness and issue a caution and a droll observation. Not so fast, you ageist, ableist asshat.
Yes, you hurt. You hobble. You hurry—slowly. But you’re not yet running on empty. Perhaps you, like Pythia, are an oracle of stability, authority, and divine knowledge.
Pythia sat on history’s most famous three-legged stool to deliver her prophecies of truth and revelation at Delphi. She knew the tripod to be inherently the most mathematically stable of designs, on any surface.
She knew the tripod to be the embodiment of the lower human planes of the mind: physical, vital, and intellectual.
Across millennia she counsels you, as she did Solon, “Position yourself now amid ships, for you are the pilot. Grasp the helm tight in your hands; you have many allies.”
Across the sidewalk, the parking lot, and the aisles, your wordless counsel prompts the allies, the apathetics, and the antagonists: I am not yet out of the running. Observe me well; time will come for you too. If you’re lucky.
Lean on the stick but trust your stride advises our current-day oracle, the immortal internet sage Source Unknown. A walking stick and a strong heart will take you anywhere. Your stick, your story. Take your time. You’re in the right lane.
Ellen Notbohm’s work touches millions in more than 25 languages. She is author of the award-winning novel The River by Starlight and the nonfiction classic Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. Her short works appear in numerous literary journals and anthologies worldwide and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions. Her books and short prose have won more than 40 awards.
