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Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life
Now I find myself in late August, with the nights cool and the crickets thick in the fields. Already the first blighted leaves glow scarlet on the red maples. It’s a season of fullness and sweet longings made sweeter now by the fact that I can’t be sure I’ll see this time of the year again....
� from Learning to Fall
Philip Simmons was just thirty-five years old in 1993 when he learned that he had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and was told he had less than five years to live. As a young husband and father, and at the start of a promising literary career, he suddenly had to learn the art of dying. Nine years later, he has succeeded, against the odds, in learning the art of living.
Now, in this surprisingly joyous and spirit-renewing book, he chronicles his search for peace and his deepening relationship with the mystery of everyday life.
Set amid the rugged New Hampshire mountains he once climbed, and filled with the bustle of family life against the quiet progression of illness, Learning to Fall illuminates the journey we all must take � “the work of learning to live richly in the face of loss.�
From our first faltering steps, Simmons says, we may fall into disappointment or grief, fall into or out of love, fall from youth or health. And though we have little choice as to the timing or means of our descent, we may, as he affirms, “fall with grace, to grace.�
With humor, hard-earned wisdom and a keen eye for life’s lessons � whether drawn from great poetry or visits to the town dump � Simmons shares his discovery that even at times of great sorrow we may find profound freedom. And by sharing the wonder of his daily life, he offers us the gift of connecting more deeply and joyously with our own.
� from Learning to Fall
Philip Simmons was just thirty-five years old in 1993 when he learned that he had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and was told he had less than five years to live. As a young husband and father, and at the start of a promising literary career, he suddenly had to learn the art of dying. Nine years later, he has succeeded, against the odds, in learning the art of living.
Now, in this surprisingly joyous and spirit-renewing book, he chronicles his search for peace and his deepening relationship with the mystery of everyday life.
Set amid the rugged New Hampshire mountains he once climbed, and filled with the bustle of family life against the quiet progression of illness, Learning to Fall illuminates the journey we all must take � “the work of learning to live richly in the face of loss.�
From our first faltering steps, Simmons says, we may fall into disappointment or grief, fall into or out of love, fall from youth or health. And though we have little choice as to the timing or means of our descent, we may, as he affirms, “fall with grace, to grace.�
With humor, hard-earned wisdom and a keen eye for life’s lessons � whether drawn from great poetry or visits to the town dump � Simmons shares his discovery that even at times of great sorrow we may find profound freedom. And by sharing the wonder of his daily life, he offers us the gift of connecting more deeply and joyously with our own.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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559 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
December 18, 2009
An exceptional read. Poetic, inspiring, , humorous, entertaining. I tried to give it a 4-star rating because I've been rating so many of the books I review as 5-star but I had to upgrade it because it is better than very good. It is a remarkable accomplishment, written while Simmons was battling ALS, to which he subsequently succumbed, he models courage and moral stamina in every paragraph.
July 6, 2020
Simmons� book of twelve essays is based on the premise that in one way or another, we are all “falling�, the ultimate fall being death. Simmons� descent was more precipitous than most as he was diagnosed in l993 with Lou Gehrig’s disease and died nine years later at the age of 45. He was a college professor of humanities in the midwest before retiring and moving to rural New England which is the subject of many of the essays.
I mention these biographical details because they are relevant to his observations about what makes life, short or long, worth living. They’re expressed with a kind of humorous self-detachment, matter-of-fact, and concentrating on what all humans have in common.
The metaphor of falling is crucial to all of his thoughts. He writes, “When we learn to fall, we learn that only by letting go our grip on all that we ordinarily find most precious � our achievements, our plans, our loved ones, our very selves � can we find, ultimately, the most precious freedom. In the act of letting go of our lives we return more fully to them. This is my book’s central theme. Each essay here takes it up from a different angle and provides another lesson in the art of falling.�
By “lesson.� though, he doesn’t mean any techniques, knowledge or information. They good for fixing things, but as he says, he doesn’t need “fixing.� He is what he is, and that’s an appreciation of anything that opens us to what he calls the “mystery of our humanness.� A good part of that involves recognizing the limitations of our humanness, ones we often ignore.
He draws meaning from a wide variety of sources � Robert Frost, Henry Thoreau, fellow New Englanders, religious figures from around the world, often filtering them through his own experience of nature. He finds religion important, commenting that all religions boil down to two beliefs � there is something of ultimate significance in the universe and there is a way of being connected to it, whether it be Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or any other belief For him, all have valid insights.
All of this may sound vague, but at the heart of what keeps Simmons going, I think, is a sense of the power, and he can only call it divine, of rebirth and renewal, found throughout the universe. Some of his chapter headings suggest his close observance of nature, “wild things,� “mud season�, “winter mind.� Nature always calls us out of our petty worries and preoccupations, calls us out to an infinitely larger reality in which we locate ourselves, or as Simmons puts it, quoting T.S. Eliot, we find “the still point of the turning world.�
Reading Simmons takes you back to Thoreau and to all of the writers who speak to us of ultimate things, of what unites humanity, our journey through “joy and suffering . . . through suffering to something like redemption, something like joy, to that larger version of ourselves that lives outside of time.� Yet paradoxically, Simmons writes about nothing but happens within the “time� of his daily living, all the small things that a man confined to a wheelchair experiences. But he sees through them, though, to what they represent, and the book is an eloquent testament to his vision.
I mention these biographical details because they are relevant to his observations about what makes life, short or long, worth living. They’re expressed with a kind of humorous self-detachment, matter-of-fact, and concentrating on what all humans have in common.
The metaphor of falling is crucial to all of his thoughts. He writes, “When we learn to fall, we learn that only by letting go our grip on all that we ordinarily find most precious � our achievements, our plans, our loved ones, our very selves � can we find, ultimately, the most precious freedom. In the act of letting go of our lives we return more fully to them. This is my book’s central theme. Each essay here takes it up from a different angle and provides another lesson in the art of falling.�
By “lesson.� though, he doesn’t mean any techniques, knowledge or information. They good for fixing things, but as he says, he doesn’t need “fixing.� He is what he is, and that’s an appreciation of anything that opens us to what he calls the “mystery of our humanness.� A good part of that involves recognizing the limitations of our humanness, ones we often ignore.
He draws meaning from a wide variety of sources � Robert Frost, Henry Thoreau, fellow New Englanders, religious figures from around the world, often filtering them through his own experience of nature. He finds religion important, commenting that all religions boil down to two beliefs � there is something of ultimate significance in the universe and there is a way of being connected to it, whether it be Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or any other belief For him, all have valid insights.
All of this may sound vague, but at the heart of what keeps Simmons going, I think, is a sense of the power, and he can only call it divine, of rebirth and renewal, found throughout the universe. Some of his chapter headings suggest his close observance of nature, “wild things,� “mud season�, “winter mind.� Nature always calls us out of our petty worries and preoccupations, calls us out to an infinitely larger reality in which we locate ourselves, or as Simmons puts it, quoting T.S. Eliot, we find “the still point of the turning world.�
Reading Simmons takes you back to Thoreau and to all of the writers who speak to us of ultimate things, of what unites humanity, our journey through “joy and suffering . . . through suffering to something like redemption, something like joy, to that larger version of ourselves that lives outside of time.� Yet paradoxically, Simmons writes about nothing but happens within the “time� of his daily living, all the small things that a man confined to a wheelchair experiences. But he sees through them, though, to what they represent, and the book is an eloquent testament to his vision.
June 27, 2020
Something I benefited from reading some years back. You might also.
February 21, 2012
*Faling with--and not from--grace*
Learning to Fall is a wonderfully enlightening and amazingly well-written book describing how suffering need not be a fall from grace if it is approached as a means of mindfully falling with grace. Although Phillip is dying from Lou Gehrig's disease, he models for the rest of us how to live more fully. In the spirit of Irvin Yalom's existential approach, by accepting his existential realities, Phillip is able to more fully engage in making his remaining days as rich as possible. May we all seek ways to find perfection in the imperfections of life!
Learning to Fall is a wonderfully enlightening and amazingly well-written book describing how suffering need not be a fall from grace if it is approached as a means of mindfully falling with grace. Although Phillip is dying from Lou Gehrig's disease, he models for the rest of us how to live more fully. In the spirit of Irvin Yalom's existential approach, by accepting his existential realities, Phillip is able to more fully engage in making his remaining days as rich as possible. May we all seek ways to find perfection in the imperfections of life!
October 7, 2012
Fabulous book reflecting on many of life's lessons from a terminally ill man. Makes us all understand that we all have a terminal disease - we all die. Make the most of each moment!
August 18, 2017
Poignant
A compassionate read that provided thoughtful introspection. Somewhat repetitive, but nevertheless poignant. We are all on this trip called life, together.
A compassionate read that provided thoughtful introspection. Somewhat repetitive, but nevertheless poignant. We are all on this trip called life, together.
April 2, 2020
This is poetry... so beautiful. A dear friend lent it to me and it sat on a shelf in my closet for a couple of years. I’m kicking myself for not reading it sooner but also finding it a perfect read for the stress and uncertainty of this quarantine. Simmons’s gift is the ability to see the sacred in the ordinary, to reflect on the world in a way both mystical and accessible, and to infuse the reader with insight and joy. What a blessing he shared with the world in this book. My favorite chapter was the one about doing nothing.
June 26, 2019
Hoping to return to this book time and again over the years, the wisdom and lessons contained within these pages are ones I've been slowly learning over the years and still need to lean in to further. The ideas of an imperfect life, of learning to fall, of all of it being okay, and of embracing a messy world are lessons I need to continue to hear and absorb. I hope to return to this book many more times; a wonderful gift from the author.
December 12, 2009
I learned from this book that even in adversity -- and maybe especially in adversity-- we can do much, enjoy much, learn much. The author had Lou Gehrig's disease, was in his 40's. Best read in small bits so you can take it in.
May 23, 2012
Recommended by a friend with ALS I read it at first with trepidation and then with delight.
Read
June 27, 2021Finished this book tonight. Philip Simmons was a professor and writer. He left his teaching career and moved back to his native New Hampshire after being diagnosed with ALS. His time spent contemplating his life and what is truly important and why becomes the substance of this book of essays he wrote about the things he learned from facing his own death. Philosophical, contemplative, existential - it is definitely a book to take your time with. I appreciate the idea of finding value in the small, the mundane, the mistakes and weak spots in our lives. The importance of quiet, community, spirituality. His faith tradition is different from mine, but his lessons are good ones and his transparency is much appreciated.
February 13, 2018
These reflections by a dying man will be inspiring and helpful to some, perhaps many, but for me, they were, actually, not very inspiring. I did like, however, his reflections on winter. Having lived most my life in a temperate climate without snowy winters, I found the author's remembrances of his childhood in New Hampshire and connecting that to a larger reflection on life, the most interesting. I think if the book had containted more personal memories like that, I would have enjoyed it more, but instead, it wove in a lot of buddhist and western contemplative musings that were nothing new to my own understanding of a life worth living.
March 6, 2024
A beautiful account of learning to find joy in the small things, the unpleasant things, the mundane things, terrifying things in a life that is messy and coming to an end. The author was a humanities professor in New England, and there's a lovely taste of Robert Frost in his words as he describes what he can see out his window and over his property as he succumbs to ALS. He is, quite literally, learning to fall as he writes this book, and teaching us that we are all falling, maybe not as quickly as he, but falling nonetheless.
And that's okay.
And that's okay.
February 1, 2021
More of us need to read this book. In a world where euthanasia and assisted suicide are on the rise, we need to learn that it's okay to fall. We also need to learn how to be present when our loved ones fall, ensuring they know how valuable they remain in our eyes.
Impeccably written, I found myself engrossed by the book. A documentary on Simmons's life is also available: The Man Who Learned to Fall.
Impeccably written, I found myself engrossed by the book. A documentary on Simmons's life is also available: The Man Who Learned to Fall.
Read
March 4, 2025I loved this book, and am so grateful that my friend S. L. introduced it to me. It is one of the most thoughtful and well-written books I have ever read on how to live. Simmons wrote this book while living with ALS and he died soon after his book, initially self-published, was published by Bantam Books. Perhaps it is knowing that which made Simmons's essays so poignant.
February 11, 2019
� 2000. ***½ . A young husband and father is diagnosed with ALS. During the course of his illness he wrote this collection of essays to help him think through his experiences. He became philosophical and gained much wisdom as he declined in physical ability.
December 16, 2023
Wow. Well read, full of joy and wonder and sadness Philip Simmons writes essays that give astonishing glimpses into the eternal, as it is lived out in this earthly life and connects us to one another and the mysteries beyond. Beautiful.
October 27, 2018
The last chapter itself, “The Edge,� is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.
December 9, 2018
I read this years ago and it still stands out as a meditative, inspiring book about life and facing the ending of earthly life with grace and presence.
May 25, 2019
Humbling
About finding richness in small things, in stillness and silence. About acceptance.
About finding richness in small things, in stillness and silence. About acceptance.
March 24, 2020
�...charts his search for peace and his deepening relationship with the mystery of every day life.�
September 10, 2020
A wonderful and simple book
February 22, 2021
Insightful and introspective.
August 30, 2021
I hated it. It was dull, unfunny and downright depressing at points. In no parts of this book did I want to continue reading, and there was not one good message in it.
December 27, 2021
I savored these seasonal, spiritual, reflections of a man diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease living in New Hampshire.
July 24, 2022
Beautiful book I picked up in Brighton. Helped me understand life a little better.
July 6, 2023
Magnificent! This book has the power to change the way you think about life and death.
April 5, 2009
Had to give this a two, but it's really a one and a half. Nothing in this whole book until the very end where I found some "good stuff". I'm going to quote it, (it's long) so if you read this, you've saved yourself the time and trouble of trying to get through this book.
"Too often the repeated challenges and hardships of our lives seem mere repetition without advancement. Life, after, is a messy business, and there's a natural ebb and flow to the process of growing up and learning what it means to be human. Still, we'd like to think we're not going in circles."
"What's needed is a structure for our spriitual life, some container to keep our growing awareness from dribbling away. The name of this container is "character". We do not have a say in all that befalls us, but we do have a say in the shape of our own character. Character, too often, is something others feel we must have beaten into us. Truth is, much of our character is under no one's control but is shaped haphazardly by our families, our communities, and our culture---not to mention the genetic foll of the dice by which we're made to begin with. But increasingly as we reach adulthood, we come to see character as a matter of choice. We choose practices and principles that share our character, building either a sound vessel or a weak one. We choose friends whose qualities we wish to develop or preserve in ourselves. Religious faith and spiritual practice are thought to strengthen this vessel, creating a sound container for our developing relationship to mystery, suffering, and the Divine. Life throws things at us that we cannot predict and cannot control. What we can control is who we are along the way. We can, like Ruth" (in the Bible) " control how much energy, compassion, and integrity we bring to our journey."
"When we accept our impermanence, letting go of our attachment to things as they are, we open ourselves to grace. When we can stand calmly in the face of our passing away, when we have the courage to look even into the face of a child and say, 'This flower, too, will fade and be no more,'when we can sense the nearness of death and feel its rightness equally with birth, then we will have crossed over to that farther shore where death can hold no fear for us, where we will know the measure of the eternal that is ours in this life.
We all have within us this capacity for wonder, this ability to break the bonds of ordinary awareness and sense that though our lives are fleeting and transitory, we are part of something larger, eternal and unchanging."
Wow! I got all that in there.
"Too often the repeated challenges and hardships of our lives seem mere repetition without advancement. Life, after, is a messy business, and there's a natural ebb and flow to the process of growing up and learning what it means to be human. Still, we'd like to think we're not going in circles."
"What's needed is a structure for our spriitual life, some container to keep our growing awareness from dribbling away. The name of this container is "character". We do not have a say in all that befalls us, but we do have a say in the shape of our own character. Character, too often, is something others feel we must have beaten into us. Truth is, much of our character is under no one's control but is shaped haphazardly by our families, our communities, and our culture---not to mention the genetic foll of the dice by which we're made to begin with. But increasingly as we reach adulthood, we come to see character as a matter of choice. We choose practices and principles that share our character, building either a sound vessel or a weak one. We choose friends whose qualities we wish to develop or preserve in ourselves. Religious faith and spiritual practice are thought to strengthen this vessel, creating a sound container for our developing relationship to mystery, suffering, and the Divine. Life throws things at us that we cannot predict and cannot control. What we can control is who we are along the way. We can, like Ruth" (in the Bible) " control how much energy, compassion, and integrity we bring to our journey."
"When we accept our impermanence, letting go of our attachment to things as they are, we open ourselves to grace. When we can stand calmly in the face of our passing away, when we have the courage to look even into the face of a child and say, 'This flower, too, will fade and be no more,'when we can sense the nearness of death and feel its rightness equally with birth, then we will have crossed over to that farther shore where death can hold no fear for us, where we will know the measure of the eternal that is ours in this life.
We all have within us this capacity for wonder, this ability to break the bonds of ordinary awareness and sense that though our lives are fleeting and transitory, we are part of something larger, eternal and unchanging."
Wow! I got all that in there.
June 13, 2014
Author Simmons is obviously someone we'd want to know --- smart, writerly, open-minded. He's also someone who got a terrible draw of the cards. Still, as I read and re-read his words, I kept feeling that there was something awry. It may have something to do with the implied premise that there is a God in Heaven and that he sends down bad things to teach us to be good. The plague, boils, ALS, terrible sickness, decay, aging --- all these serve a higher purpose: to bring us closer to the divine.
Simmons denies this, says, "Rhyme and reason, after all, are human values, not divine ones." But then, "Thank God for the sunset pink clouds over Red Hill," he says, "but also for the mosquitoes I must fan from my face while watching the clouds. To thank God for broken bones and broken hearts, for everything that opens us to the mystery of our humanness."
Now I'm never one to fault another man's divine. We have to cling to whatever life raft they leave behind in the icy waters when the boat goes down. But this old Testament stuff does try one's patience. Largely, I believe, because it has the faintest aroma of pollyanna.
I think the fault of all this lies not with the divine, but with the syllogism. Simply stated, Simmons' premise is,
I have [a disease, a woe, a travail].
Thus I am suffering.
We are all going to suffer sometime.
This suffering has a purpose, because
Suffering is part of the handiwork of the divine to teach us grace, or, better --- how to fall with grace.
I should like to put forth what might be a more user-friendly syllogism:
I have [a disease, a woe, a travail].
I am suffering but this suffering probably doesn't mean squat.
It will not make me wiser or nicer or more humane or more wonderful.
Nor does it have to make me more bitter, wrathful, depressed, or suicidal.
Also, we can't blame all this on the divine: the divine don't work that way.
He (or she or it) may have set the whole merry-go-round in motion, but he (or she or it) is not involved in our day-to-day.
Especially with questions of pain, misery, suffering, and death. (As John Cage said, they're there "merely to thicken the broth.")...
Full review at RalphMag.org
Simmons denies this, says, "Rhyme and reason, after all, are human values, not divine ones." But then, "Thank God for the sunset pink clouds over Red Hill," he says, "but also for the mosquitoes I must fan from my face while watching the clouds. To thank God for broken bones and broken hearts, for everything that opens us to the mystery of our humanness."
Now I'm never one to fault another man's divine. We have to cling to whatever life raft they leave behind in the icy waters when the boat goes down. But this old Testament stuff does try one's patience. Largely, I believe, because it has the faintest aroma of pollyanna.
I think the fault of all this lies not with the divine, but with the syllogism. Simply stated, Simmons' premise is,
I have [a disease, a woe, a travail].
Thus I am suffering.
We are all going to suffer sometime.
This suffering has a purpose, because
Suffering is part of the handiwork of the divine to teach us grace, or, better --- how to fall with grace.
I should like to put forth what might be a more user-friendly syllogism:
I have [a disease, a woe, a travail].
I am suffering but this suffering probably doesn't mean squat.
It will not make me wiser or nicer or more humane or more wonderful.
Nor does it have to make me more bitter, wrathful, depressed, or suicidal.
Also, we can't blame all this on the divine: the divine don't work that way.
He (or she or it) may have set the whole merry-go-round in motion, but he (or she or it) is not involved in our day-to-day.
Especially with questions of pain, misery, suffering, and death. (As John Cage said, they're there "merely to thicken the broth.")...
Full review at RalphMag.org
May 19, 2014
It would be churlish and insensitive to find fault with this worthy, heartfelt, even noble book, written about a man's struggles and insights as he faces life after a diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS). Though it touches on many issues of the quality of life as considered by poets, mystics, and spiritual traditions, it illustrated to me that every path through illness is the journey of a single person. You have to find your own own way and trust to grace to illuminate the journey. I believe Simmons, who died in 2002, would not disagree.
His book is written with an elegance and an appreciation for the rural New England landscape and seasons where he lived as a boy and returned to with his young family in his final years. There is the spirit of Robert Frost in his observations, and many readers will find solace in what he has found to be true in his abbreviated life. I give him credit for asking the right questions, though the answers he offers are often abstract and paradoxical.
His book is written with an elegance and an appreciation for the rural New England landscape and seasons where he lived as a boy and returned to with his young family in his final years. There is the spirit of Robert Frost in his observations, and many readers will find solace in what he has found to be true in his abbreviated life. I give him credit for asking the right questions, though the answers he offers are often abstract and paradoxical.
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