There’s an old joke that goes like this:

“How do you eat an elephant?”

“One bite at a time.”

Last Friday, I went outside to clean the moss off my basement steps. There are four steps leading from the yard down to the square of cement in front of my basement door. I can’t recall the last time I cleaned them off. Quite possibly never, if I’m honest. Since I’ve lived here for 26 years, that’s a whole lot of not-cleaning, but they’re just a few steps in my backyard. I’m not even certain whether they’re stone or cement, although they’re perfectly squared off, leading me to suspect they were poured.

A few weeks ago, as I was walking down the steps, I slipped. Just a little, and I didn’t fall. The thought flashed through my brain that I should clean off the moss that covered the steps, but then I moved onto the next thing and forgot all about them. Then, last week, I slipped again. Again, it was just a little bit of slippage, and I didn’t fall, but it occurred to me that if I actually did fall and sustained injury, I’d be on my own. Only a person standing in a certain part of my backyard would ever see me. My neighbors might hear me if I could manage to be loud enough, but if I were to hit my head and be knocked out—more likely that I’d be a late-night snack for one of the bears that is frequenting our neighborhood.