We learned the stingray shuffle early on, almost as soon as we learned to swim. If you were old enough to put your toes in the water by yourself then you were old enough to know not to lift your feet off the sand, to move forward by pushing rather than stepping. If you forgot then you deserved what happened, something I only remembered once I felt the squirm next to my foot and moved away in time to catch the edge of the barb on the underside of my toe. Wanting to avoid the teasing I told them that I had stepped on a broken shell and winced whenever I stepped down for weeks.
It's that stingray lash that I've been thinking of, walking, since yesterday when I tripped mid-stumble and bruised the ends of each of my toes on one foot. Graceful is among the many things that I am not. (Other things that I am not include: a tugboat, twelve bouquets of flowers, smaller than a breadbox, and interested in moving to L.A.. In case you were keeping track.)
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