How to Slip on the Ice

Don’t just lie there on the cold ground, covered in snow. Roll over onto your side, at least, and, from there, into a sitting position. Notice, as you do so, how it stings, your side, the whole bony mid-hip region.

Check, before doing anything else, your glasses. Make sure they are not broken. You can handle bruises, sprains, fractures even, but your glasses? No, not your glasses. They come first. So, tap your temples with a gloved hand to check. Wait, what? They’re not there?!

Try not to panic, despite the fact that the adrenaline has already hit your blood, despite the fact that your thoughts are already racing ahead at a breakneck pace toward catastrophic hypothetical futures in which you can no longer decipher the marks on a screen or make out the words on street signs or insert keys into their keyholes.

Crawl around on all fours, in concentric circles, expanding outward from the epicenter, the place of impact, an imprint in the snow, a chalk outline of your body on the pavement. Pat down the snow with the palms of your gloved hands, firmly enough to locate your glasses but gently enough not to crush them when you do.

Discover, at last, the location of your glasses, farther than you expected, off the sidewalk, buried deep in the side of the snowbank that conceals the lawn, the smashed grasses, beneath its weight. Don’t bother to brush the snow off them. Scramble, rather, to put them on your face. Your vision is bad enough these days that you wouldn't be able to assess the damage without them.

Allow the tension in your body to dissipate as you confirm that the lenses are indeed intact. Breathe a sigh of relief. Don’t worry about the fact that the frames are wobbly and sit crooked on the bridge of your nose. You are okay with crooked, okay with superglue, okay with tape even, okay with whatever it takes, as long as there is no damage to the lenses.

Lean back, alleviated, into the snowbank. Allow yourself to sink in. Listen to the sound of the snow creaking and crunching beneath your weight as you settle in. Now is the moment to scan your body for injuries.

Notice how your hip stung when you rolled over onto your side. Remember also the sharp pain in your wrist when you were patting down the snow in search of the glasses. Wipe the beads of sweat that have been gathering on your brow and wipe, in particular, that one drop that has already started to run down the side of your face, picking up speed as it clears your cheekbone. Confirm, when you look down at your hand, that it is indeed not sweat but blood, not only because of the dark stain on the fabric of your gloves but also because of its thickness, its stickiness.

Remove the glove from your left hand and rub your fingertips, now bare, against the skin of your forehead until you locate the bump. Gauge the amount of moisture, the amount of stickiness, surrounding the protuberance, and establish perfunctorily, dismissively almost, that the cut is not deep, the wound not serious.

You are now in a position to conclude your assessment, to tell yourself that none of the injuries detected thus far are what you would consider to be serious. Affirm that you cannot let get minor injuries get in your way. There is work to do, bills to pay, books to read, texts to write. Conclude, taking it a step further, that everything in your life is just fine. Repeat to yourself, however many times it takes, that all is well. Couldn’t. be. better.

Illustration by Rakuro Taniuchi (1921-81)

Pause, just a moment longer, before you attempt to stand up. Contemplate how different the world looks, how improbable, when observed from this angle. Take note of how, stood on its head, turned inside out, the features of your life start to blur.

Can you be sure, for example, that the building before you, suddenly lopsided, is even The Community Center? Don’t its details, shifting and reassembling before your eyes in ever new configurations, resemble the university where you taught for more than a decade? Aren’t your students, one hundred and sixty-eight of them, waiting in the classroom for you to teach their survey course, waiting for you to take your rightful place at the front of the class? Can it really be any other way? Isn’t this what you know best, teaching? Isn’t this what you do best, after two decades of trial and error, having finally found your voice and, having done so, enabled the voices of your students? Isn’t this your life? Isn’t it the outcome of so many decades of study and sacrifice?

Or, details shifting once again, doesn’t the building resemble the library where you did your research? Can’t you sense your desk waiting for you, calling out to you, from the top floor, all the way in the back, in the most remote corner? Aren’t those your books stacked on the desktop, with a space in the middle for your manuscript, as always? Aren’t you indeed on your way through the heavy hardwood doors to continue your work, to exercise your profession, in the chair where you grew old, surrounded by index cards and drafts, taking in the view from the window, the gentle snow falling under the orange streetlamps?

Doesn’t it just make sense? Doesn’t it just feel right? Do you not recognize them, the buildings unfolding before you, your students, awaiting your approach, extending a hand, eager to help you get to your feet again, eager to help you brush off the snow, eager to help you return, with a spring in your step, to your old life, the life you know so well, the life you built for yourself so carefully, so confidently, a sure bet?

Hold on tight to that vision of your past lives. Savor it until the last moment, until it recedes, until you come to your senses, until it is punctured by the present and its sharp edges, its slippery sidewalks, until the familiar image of The Community Center emerges from the static, antennae having been properly adjusted, until you remember your beige coveralls and oversized keyring, your yellow-and-black Rubbermaid cleaning supply pushcart and the Zamboni walk-behind floor scrubber, until you realize that the toilet in the basement bathrooms is still clogged and that you have half of your shift ahead of you yet, all the heavy lifting.

Give it time to sink in, all that has happened, The Bold Beginning, The Punk Years, The Blueprints, The Hole in the Fence, The Punk University, Holding the Line so Fastidiously, The Almost Ivy League, The Great Debacle, The Halfway House, and The Community Center, so incontrovertible, so non-negotiable, so resistant to interpretation. 

Tell yourself that it is time to pick yourself up off the ground, but don’t get up just yet. The snow is starting to fall harder, more furiously. The snowflakes are larger, plumper, more uncertain of their trajectories. Allow them to fall on your eyebrows and eyelashes. Allow them to tickle the skin of your face, red by now.

Close your eyes. Close them tighter. Forget about the bruises and scrapes and focus for a moment on the other type of stinging, the cold. Sense the thick layer of ice beneath the fresh snow, the reason why you fell in the first place. Wiggle your extremities and notice, more specifically, how they already tingle, how they are already starting to go numb. Allow it, the cold, to wrap its tentacles around your body, tighten its grip, and pull you deeper into the snowbank.

Soon you will rise. Soon you will brush off the snow. Soon you will stand on the inside looking out. Back on your feet. Back in the building. Back in a building. Back at your desk. Back in front of the class. Any second now. Any day now.

Illustration by Rakuro Taniuchi (1921-81)