Between A Sled And A Hard Place

So there I was, five years old, face covered in blood, crying at my own birthday party. It was January, windy and cold, crisp and biting, with just the right amount of snow for sledding. I always hated having a winter birthday. I wanted to do things associated with summer, like go swimming, play volleyball, or just horse around in the sun. Instead, I settled for sledding, the only winter activity that seemed worth my time.

My Aunt and Uncle own Bell Farms, where their house sits over a moderately big hill. They even invested in a tow rope to help haul the kids back up after sledding. (The hike back up was terrible). We reserved the hill for my birthday party, but were unable to use the tow rope. But, I got to invite friends along!

That afternoon the air was stale, the snow was packed tightly to the ground, and the temperature was somewhere far below freezing. My aim was speed. We set a steep course, packing the solid snow into the ground as much as possible with our tiny feet. I had the perfect sled, long and thin, lightweight, and the perfect technique to go with it. My plan was to lay on my stomach, close to the ground, with my arms and legs squeezed tightly to my body. That way, with little air resistance, I would speed down the hill faster than anyone had ever seen.

My plan worked for the most part. The snow was slick and slippery, hard like ice, yet dense like snow. I easily gained speed as I began sledding down the hill, like a bullet, tucking my arms and legs into my body. I was pretty smart for how young I was, understanding that air resistance was a speed factor. What I didn’t understand was that for such a steep hill, I weighed a lot more than my sled. About halfway down, I started noticing that I was slipping forward on the sled, my stomach dragging on the material. I tried pushing myself up but didn’t want to lose momentum. I slid, face-first into the crusty, cold snow. I remember my sled sliding out from under me, racing to the bottom as I slid as well with my face in the ground. It was traumatic. I didn’t just face-plant in the crusty ice and snow; I slid through layer after layer, each strip of ice slicing my face deeper, burning me with its cold edges, and taking the impact of my body.

When I was finally able to stop myself from descending down the hill any further, the damage had already been done. I’m not sure if I blacked out before my body stopped or if I just blocked the experience out in my mind. All I know is that I either woke up or returned to the present with the sensation of suffocating, face in the snow. I wasn’t sure what happened, and couldn’t quite grasp the reality of my situation yet. I quickly rolled over, disoriented. Everything was cold, but my face was scalding, numb, yet pulsing. I wasn’t sure what happened. I took my hat off, thinking I was overheating. I was a little sore from sledding, nothing out of the usual, all except my face. What happened?

My sled was already at the bottom of the hill, but I wasn’t walking halfway down to get it. I was so tired. As I started climbing the first half of the hill, pondering over what went wrong with my plan, I started to see the faces of my friends and family at the top of the hill. They looked worried. Then I felt it. I put my hands to my face and they came back red. I’d never seen my parents run so fast, especially downhill! My mum made it first, motherly instinct and anxiety pumping through her veins. My dad got to me within the next minute, scooping me up from the ground where I sat with my mother. He carried me up the hill as I sobbed and covered his jacket with blood and tears. My face burned on the heavy material of his jacket. I knew it would stain, and so did he, but neither of us cared at that moment.

I remember sobbing as my face became less and less numb from the cold, the hot blood pouring from awful cuts made by the icy snow. My mum tried to clean me up in the bathroom, using my family’s first aid kit. It was torture. The ice had removed the skin from my cheeks, cutting deep into my eye sockets. I hadn’t started wearing glasses yet, and I didn’t wear goggles when sledding, so I had no eye protection at all. Luckily, the cuts were only in the skin of my face and my eyes hadn’t retained any damage. What I thought was going to be a spectacular, fun, day, turned into a brutal memory that I carry with me today.

Although I was young, and the injuries were not life-threatening, I still bear the scars today and remember that day quite vividly. The scars on my cheekbones accentuate my eye bags, creating drooping lines over my cheeks. Not many people know they’re scars. At this point, it’s kind of just how my face is. My mum took pictures of that day, wounds and no wounds. She lovingly calls the little girl from those pictures Hamburg Face. For your information, it really did look like half of my face was made from a package of raw hamburg.

I remember seeing my face completely scabbed, bloodied, and scarred, and feeling so disgusting and ugly. I felt like the girl that turns into a blueberry from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I just wanted to have a fun time, and suddenly I had morphed into a bloody pulp, almost like the bloated blueberry. I was young, so, of course, I thought I looked scary. It was just so shocking and traumatic of an experience. I definitely think Violet could really understand the experience of suddenly being mutilated by something that seemed so fun and carefree. Her gum chewing turned her into a giant blueberry, and my speed sledding turned me into a hamburg face.

“Violet! You’re turning violet!”

“(My Name)! Your face looks like raw hamburg!”

Now that I think about it, that’s probably not the greatest quote for a movie. It’s kind of gross.

Photo on Foter.com