Friction is my friend
Feb. 7th, 2005 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistIt hasn't come yet this winter, but I suppose it will. There have been some close calls, but so far I've managed to stay on my feet. Yet ice season is far from over, and I think it trips me up at least once a year.
A few years ago I was walking back to my dorm room and was ambushed by the sort of ice you get when the temperature's high enough during the day to melt stuff a little, but cold enough at night to freeze it again; what appears to be either invisible (especially in the dark) or an innocent water puddle (especially in the dark) is actually smooth, clear ice. My foot landed on the ice but my knee landed on the concrete, leaving me with a short-lived limp, a torn pair of khakis, and blood oozing out of a thousand tiny gashes in my skin.
The next winter was more flamboyant. Commuting to work by bike was obviously preferable to walking, and it'd been a mild enough winter that even after Christmas break the snow and ice didn't seem prohibitive to me. But turning on to my street one morning on my way home, I hit a patch of ice hidden under the snow, and thus was surprised when my bike and I first leaned a bit too much into the turn and then we slid along the road, the bike a bit faster than me. That time my pants didn't rip (and a good thing, too, as they were practically all I had to wear to work), but a knee--the same one as the year before, in fact--was still mangled like I'd gotten a nasty rug burn or something, which I suppose I had. That day I decided maybe it wouldn't be so bad to put the bike away until spring. The mark on my knee didn't seem to disappear until the winter did.
But most of the incidents are less memorable, less likely to hurt your body than your pride. They usually catch you by surprise, when you can't see the ice or you're not looking for it because you're thinking about your bank account or the song you're humming along to at the moment. And then there you are, suddenly on the ground when you meant to be walking or something equally sensible, instead you're trying to simultaneously get back on your feet and look in every direction at once to see if anyone noticed you.
Ice is egalitarian; it keeps us from feeling too special, for no matter how expensive your shoes or your suit, no matter how important or busy you think you are, you're just as capable of falling on your ass as anyone else. Ice is an equal opportunity leveler.
And when our worries get too lofty, the ice on the sidewalks reminds us that our brains shouldn't get too used to going around five or six feet off the ground. There are baser things, immediate here-and-now things, that shouldn't always be taken for granted. We are not (or do not appear to be) mere brains in jars on a shelf, we have these bodies to carry around with us everywhere. Life is not all economics or art or other intellectual pursuits! Life is also bone-jarring falls, the rush of blood to your cheeks to show you're embarrassed, the bruise on your tailbone, the scar on your knee, the story to tell the next person you cuddle up with to trade the stories of your old wounds, asking each other "and that, what's that from?", because there's no airbrushing in real life.
A few years ago I was walking back to my dorm room and was ambushed by the sort of ice you get when the temperature's high enough during the day to melt stuff a little, but cold enough at night to freeze it again; what appears to be either invisible (especially in the dark) or an innocent water puddle (especially in the dark) is actually smooth, clear ice. My foot landed on the ice but my knee landed on the concrete, leaving me with a short-lived limp, a torn pair of khakis, and blood oozing out of a thousand tiny gashes in my skin.
The next winter was more flamboyant. Commuting to work by bike was obviously preferable to walking, and it'd been a mild enough winter that even after Christmas break the snow and ice didn't seem prohibitive to me. But turning on to my street one morning on my way home, I hit a patch of ice hidden under the snow, and thus was surprised when my bike and I first leaned a bit too much into the turn and then we slid along the road, the bike a bit faster than me. That time my pants didn't rip (and a good thing, too, as they were practically all I had to wear to work), but a knee--the same one as the year before, in fact--was still mangled like I'd gotten a nasty rug burn or something, which I suppose I had. That day I decided maybe it wouldn't be so bad to put the bike away until spring. The mark on my knee didn't seem to disappear until the winter did.
But most of the incidents are less memorable, less likely to hurt your body than your pride. They usually catch you by surprise, when you can't see the ice or you're not looking for it because you're thinking about your bank account or the song you're humming along to at the moment. And then there you are, suddenly on the ground when you meant to be walking or something equally sensible, instead you're trying to simultaneously get back on your feet and look in every direction at once to see if anyone noticed you.
Ice is egalitarian; it keeps us from feeling too special, for no matter how expensive your shoes or your suit, no matter how important or busy you think you are, you're just as capable of falling on your ass as anyone else. Ice is an equal opportunity leveler.
And when our worries get too lofty, the ice on the sidewalks reminds us that our brains shouldn't get too used to going around five or six feet off the ground. There are baser things, immediate here-and-now things, that shouldn't always be taken for granted. We are not (or do not appear to be) mere brains in jars on a shelf, we have these bodies to carry around with us everywhere. Life is not all economics or art or other intellectual pursuits! Life is also bone-jarring falls, the rush of blood to your cheeks to show you're embarrassed, the bruise on your tailbone, the scar on your knee, the story to tell the next person you cuddle up with to trade the stories of your old wounds, asking each other "and that, what's that from?", because there's no airbrushing in real life.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-07 09:17 pm (UTC)I love that line. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-08 03:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-08 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-08 12:52 am (UTC)I went to college in Providence,RI. Fucking hilly place. Slopes and ice so don't mix. However, no matter how much I slipped, I managed never to bust my ass. Everyone else I knew fell at one point or another, but I made it, GO ME!
I'm imagining that my luck will run out soon. :/
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-08 02:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-08 03:21 am (UTC)