O P I N I O N
Lizard Think
By Izzy DelOrfano
In 2007 there was a massive blizzard that hit where my family lived in Connecticut especially hard. My grandmothers house was on one of those special corners where the plows decide to push all the snow from a five mile radius. Now I was probably about three and a half feet tall at the time, so I can’t give you an accurate measurement, but if you asked me then I’d tell you the pile of snow on her front garden was as tall as a building. The day after the snow fell, I woke up early, threw on my neon pink snowsuit, and ate my breakfast with the veracity of cat that hasn’t been fed in 2-3 hours. I rushed outside, and the day flew by. At one point, gazing up at that dirty gray chunk of street snow, I had a genius idea. Like Mallory and Irving gazing up the impossible form of Everest, I decided – I MUST climb and descend such a glorious mountain. Successfully.
The climb went well, the descent, not so much. I had the genius idea that to dismount, I would carry my inner tube up and then glide to the bottom. But the chunky, broken-up ice in my mountain had other plans. As I reached the bottom, my tube hit an air pocket, and I slid sideways until the inner tube was on top of me and the primary contact point with the snow was my face. I glided a few more feet across the undisturbed, smooth snow in the yard, and then laid face down for a few seconds, basking in my humility. Hopefully the kids building a snowman across the street didn’t see. I decided I needed a hot chocolate break after such a cosmic fail, so I righted myself, dusted off some snow, and headed inside.
I had been snugly wrapped head-to-toe in midwestern grandmother apparel – wool socks, lined boots, snowsuit, sweater, windbreaker, jacket, hat, gloves, mittens over the gloves. My face was the only part of me exposed to the cold. So cold, in fact, that I couldn’t feel it at all. As I trudged into the kitchen, my face started to feel quite hot, and I quickly tried to take off as many of my layers as I could. My grandmother heard my call and hurried over to get me out of my clothes and into some warm pancakes, but as soon as she saw me she shrieked in horror.
Using your face as a sled is very unsafe, and apparently leads to an injury I can only describe as rug burn if the rug was made of steel wool. I was wondering what the salty taste in my mouth was, but I figured just some chemical I shouldn’t have ingested from the dirty snow. In fact, I looked like I was hit by a weedwhacker, and the taste was all of the blood which was supposed to be in my forehead. I remember sitting, still in my outside clothes, on the toilet lid, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, while my grandma frantically called my mom and they discussed whether I should go to the hospital. My face was starting to burn, and I was sweaty, my hair was wet and sticking to my bloody forehead, and my eyelashes still had little clumps of dirty ice on them, starting to melt off and fall into my lap. I had two major slices – one from my chin, across my lips, up to the corner of my nose, and one from my forehead across my eyelid down to my cheek, as well as a few other scrapes.
I looked BADASS. I looked like one of the heroes in my grandpas war movies, or one of the skater boys from the videos my friends would watch after attempting to slide down a 50-foot staircase railing. And I was a tough cookie, because it didn’t even hurt!
I was not hospitalized, thankfully, but did have to endure a few nasty rounds of full-face disinfectant spray and when I returned to school, I was immediately called to the nurse’s office. My family’s over exuberant bandaging made it look a lot worse than it was, and one of my classmates told me I looked like a zombie. The nurse was concerned for my safety at home and my mom had to have a meeting with her and the principal – if she didn’t have pictures of the snow pile and my blood puddles leading up to the front door, you would’ve guessed I’d been used for knife-throwing practice.
On Sunday night, I bundled up and went out as the snow began to fall, wondering how anyone could tolerate the weather without at least two pairs of pants on. Manchester was silent aside from the occasional whoosh of a tow truck, and I stepped into the street, blinking hard at the snowflakes falling into my eyes. I have a scar between my nose and upper lip from my epic fail two decades ago, and it smarts in the cold. Still, I endured it, and tried to enjoy the rare experience of a dead-silent city street in a blizzard. After about 20 minutes, I decided I missed the comfort of my couch and television. And the cold was making me have to pee.
Until this past week, snowfall has actually been steadily declining in the northeast since the ’70s. But as New Englanders, it’s our duty to moan about every inconvenience. Still, I try to remember the whimsy of being a kid with a sun-bleached, cracking sled and no school tomorrow. I love to complain as much as the next guy, but I want to encourage you to go stand outside for a few minutes while it’s snowing. No, cleaning off your car doesn’t count – I mean go outside and do nothing, especially at night. We live in a beautiful place with unique weather. I’m trying to be more positive this year, and whenever I want to complain about the barely-cleared sidewalks or my soggy ankles, I think back to cracking my face open on a sheet of road ice – glorious, cold, and unforgettable.
Izzy DelOrfano is a Manchester-based graphic novelist and writer. She is an NEC graduate and SNHU student, as well as a founding member of New England Artists for Action. When she’s not selling wares at art markets or drawing comics, she spends time cooking, putzing around downtown, and hanging out with her cat. She can be reached at lizzardthing@gmail.com