When I was about seven or eight years old, this tree was one of my favorite haunts. I had a special perch in its branches, a special way of getting up, and a special way of getting down. My father even hung a couple of ropes from the branches, so that my sister and I could use them as swings of a sort. If the weather was good and I wanted to be outside, you could often find me there after school, enjoying the breezes and getting bugs in my hair. It's not a large tree by any means, but it was big enough at the time -- and since it was small, and on a hill, when I wanted to get down all I had to do was climb down to a lower branch and jump off, landing on all fours. Nothin' to it.
One day, I came home from a piano lesson, and went right up the tree before I'd even been inside the house. I hadn't even had the chance to change into some play clothes -- I was still wearing the little pink button-down blouse and little blue twill skirt that I'd worn to school that day. My mother claims that, as I clambered up the tree trunk, she hollered at me not to climb the tree wearing a skirt; but for the life of me I can't remember it. And anyway, what did I care? I just wanted to be up the tree. So up I climbed, heedless as any invincible eight-year-old might be.
Meanwhile, my mother went into the house with my younger sister, and started doing her evening routine -- fixing dinner and the like. A few minutes later, she called out the back door to find out where I was; and I just decided it was time to get out of the tree and come inside for awhile. So I made my way down to my usual branch, perched in the usual way, and jumped down as I usually did, preparing to land on all fours as per usual.
Unfortunately, as I leapt, my skirt got caught on a small stubby branch. And from that point on, gravity reminded me that it was the Universal Law, not to be disobeyed (even by invincible eight-year-olds). For a fraction of a second, I was caught by my skirt, my center of gravity thrown forward; and then the tree let go.
Instead of landing on all fours, I landed on my outstretched hands. My wrists, protesting against having to bear my full weight all of a sudden, flat-out broke. Both of them. Cleanly.
Oddly enough, it didn't hurt. I seem to remember having the wind knocked out of me some, and I remember that I did get a jolt from hitting the ground, and I did start crying -- but I don't think I was crying from pain so much as from an instinctual understanding that something was seriously wrong with my body right then. I didn't have any bones sticking out, no blood, nothing like that; I could still feel my fingers, and I think I could still move them. But I still knew, within seconds, that I needed to go in and see mom Right Now.
Clutching my arms to my chest, I raced inside. My mom took one look at my crooked arms, and called the doctor. My timing was impeccable -- the doctor's office was closing in five minutes. They could just squeeze us in as their last emergency of the day. And they did.
And, after a quick trip to the doc's office, a bunch of X-rays, a trip to the emergency room of the local children's hospital (which was right across the street from the clinic), and a whole lot of bone-setting and painkillers, everybody agreed that -- yup -- I had not one, but two broken arms. And boy, that was just going to suck.
Truth be told, it wasn't that great; but it wasn't that lousy, either. I was a great patient. I had to spend a night in the hospital for observation, and that made me sad because I wasn't with my parents; but when they set my bones and put the casts on me, I didn't cry or scream once. After I went home, I had two plaster casts. True, they were heavy and clunky; but they didn't actually go past my elbows, so I had pretty good use of my arms. I couldn't take a bath very easily, but I did get a lot of great artwork drawn on me, from all my family and friends. And I got a lot of attention. So it wasn't exceptionally fun, but it was certainly bearable. I had the most trouble with cabin fever, because it was the end of the school year, the weather was starting to improve, and I was stuck in the house for a number of weeks waiting for my arms to heal.
So don't jump out of a tree with a skirt on.