THINGS I LEARNED FROM FALLING

Claire Nelson is a New Zealand-born writer who has spent more than a decade in London working in food and travel journalism, including more than five years at Jamie Oliver’s magazine. She has also written for Elle, Food and Travel, Trek & Mountain, Lodestars Anthology, and Westjet Canada. Things I Learned from Falling is her first book. She lives in Toronto.

“A vibrantly physical book.” —The Guardian

“Uplifting and brave.” —Stylist

“A riveting account of loneliness, anxiety and survival.” —Cosmopolitan

1. In the Things I Learned from Falling, Claire Nelson recounts her story of survival through physical, mental, and emotional endurance after falling 25 feet in Joshua Tree National Park, California. What experience, if any, do you have that might help you better relate to Claire’s narrative? If not through recalling a literal fall, what metaphorical “fall” could you call upon? Discuss the similarities and differences of experiencing and recovering from a literal and metaphorical fall.

2. Claire confesses on page 21, “I knew my friends were right to warn me about the risks of being out here on my own and I nodded gravely, taking in their stories. But, somehow, I didn’t think they applied to me.” How often do you find yourself in a similar mindset when encountering stories of survival like that of Claire’s? Do you believe falling (both literally and figuratively) can be avoided if we are simply aware and careful? Or is falling an inevitable part of life? Discuss.

3. Before recounting the moment she slipped and fell, Claire notes in hindsight, “Confidence breeds complacency.” Share a time when you’ve made the mistake of overlooking risk due to misplaced confidence. What are your reflections on this experience in hindsight? What advice would you have for the version of you at that time, and do you believe you would’ve taken said advice? Why, or why not?

4. From struggling to ask for help in her everyday life, to being left in a position where she was desperately in need of it, Claire was forced to learn what it meant to depend entirely on oneself – and the cost it would take. Put yourself in Claire’s shoes, and consider what your biggest takeaway would be on the interdependence between ourselves and others in life. Does asking for help signify weakness or strength? Why do you believe so?

5. Desperate to leave a message behind in preparation for the worst, Claire uses her camera to document her thoughts for her friends and family. At first, she finds herself struggling to bear her vulnerability and maintains a “tough-it-out” tone throughout. Why do you think this was so? What was Claire attempting to prevent – to protect – by maintaining emotional distance? Would you have gone about your “final” message the same way or differently? Discuss.

6. Loneliness is a theme commonly touched upon through the book. Both through the lens of Claire’s survival through the empty dessert, and during her struggle with a sense of disconnection to the world prior to her fall. Which scenario affects you more viscerally? Share your experiences, if any, that could help you relate to either of Claire’s encounters with isolation.

7. Facing potential death, Claire contemplates her life experiences leading up to her fateful fall. When asking herself if she had any regrets, she responded surely, “No. Not really.” If given the chance, what memories would you ponder over during the last moments of your life? Is there anything you’d wish to have done differently? Or would you be mostly clear of regrets, like Claire?

8. Holding tightly to a hard-earned identity of being headstrong, unconstrained, and independent, our protagonist finds herself wrestling with her deepest and most vulnerable needs as a human being – “connection, love and affection.” (page 146) Like Claire, we are all “never just one person.” What different parts of you feel most contradictory to one another? How do we reconcile who we want to be with who we know we truly are? In what moments or settings in your life do you feel completely aligned between these two versions of yourself?

9. On page 164, Claire questions, “Why spend your life preparing when you can spend it living? Then again, what happens when you go out there and live unprepared and everything falls away?” Discuss what your responses would be and why. Would you rather be overly cautious in life and lose out on experiences to-be-had, or would you rather take the risk and live life to its fullest?

10. After enduring four days alone in the dessert, Claire is rescued and vows to live a new life: one of emotional openness. As Rumi says, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Like Claire, have you ever experienced a life changing event that caused a re-examination and transformation in way of living? In what ways do you think Claire’s experience will stay with her throughout her life? In what ways has her story of survival and reflections on human connection inspire you to live your own life?

Prelude

I remember the sound my body made as it hit the ground.

A sharp crack. One that cut through the thump of my weight against the desert floor. Then the white heat of pain that stabbed through my body, escaping through my mouth in an almighty howl.

I tried to scramble to my feet—the instinctive reaction to falling—but I couldn’t get up. Everything below the arms remained a dead weight.

Get up.

I heaved my head and shoulders forward, trying to prise myself off the ground, but each time I crumpled. Again. And again. And again. Something in my body was disconnected. Urgent messages were being fired from the brain but they weren’t getting through.

Only pain. Unbearable, indescribable pain, a scorching flame gun that set me alight with each attempt to move.

I lay there flat on my back, my breathing fast and my heart pounding. I craned my neck to get a look at my legs. I couldn’t lift them either. Or bend my knees.

Oh god.

Oh god, please no . . .

My feet were also immovable, weighted to the desert floor, but I found with intense concentration I could lean them slightly from side to side.

I gently wiggled my toes inside my boots.

OK. I wasn’t paralysed. That was something. I felt a strange flicker of hope through the pain and panic, a sense of, ‘I’m going to be all right.’

But my pelvis was broken. That much was clear. Shattered was actually the word that kept coming to my mind: more than a break, it felt like there were pieces. Every time I tried to sit up, it felt like someone had replaced my hip bones with a bag of broken dinner plates, shards jangling loosely, so my shoulders could do nothing but slump back to the ground.

As the realization of the extent of my injuries set in so did the cold tingle of shock, and my teeth began to chatter uncontrollably, like wind-up dentures, a violently loud clacking inside my head.

Help.

My daypack had dislodged from my shoulder when I’d fallen but was thankfully within reach. I yanked it towards me, scrabbling in the front pocket for my iPhone, my hands shaking as I dialled 911. All the while my brain raced to scramble a request together.

An ambulance, right? I needed an ambulance. Some medical aid. Any medical aid. I needed help.

Out of the corner of my eye, on the screen pressed to my ear, I saw words flash up: Call Failed.

No. No no no.

I dialled again: Call Failed.

I checked the phone and saw I had zero bars. A horrifying and crushing realization hit me with the full force of its weight:

I have no service out here.

My stomach lurched; of course I am out of range, I am in the middle of the California desert. It’s why I’d had my phone tucked away in the rucksack—I wouldn’t need it here. Except now I did need it, and I had no other means of communication.

You fucking idiot, roared the voice in my head, now dark and furious. How had I been so stupid? No, no, this had to work. This couldn’t be happening. Clinging desperately to denial, I held the phone high up in every direction I could, whispering silent pleas for a miracle as my heart banged loudly in my chest, my eyes locked on the corner of the iPhone screen where the little bars would normally be.

I was miles from a signal. Miles from the road. Miles into the middle of nowhere.

I knew I was out of luck. I knew.

Yet I couldn’t stop trying. And with each redial, each attempt to reach out to someone, anyone, any other human being on this planet, just to let someone know I was here and I was hurt, the absolute futility of it sank in deeper. With each press of the button my hope melted into cold fear.

Call Failed.

Redial.

Call Failed.

Redial.

Call Failed.

Redial.

Call Failed.

I screamed into the sky as loudly as I could—‘HELP ME! PLEASE!’ And I heard the echoes dissolve into the rocks around me, absorbed like rain drops, until all that was left was silence.