post the eighty-fifth, 2013

on the left, there's that double-scar from where i stepped on nails. you remember. we'd had a lot of rain, the drainage ditches were full, all us kids were messing about in the muddy water. it's all fun & games until someone gets hurt, right? a puncture near my toe and a gash in my arch, lots of tears but not so much blood. mama called the doctor because she didn't have anything to clean it with (dirty water and whatnot) and he said, pour mouthwash on it. the left ankle's been broken and it's currently battling tendinitis. the left knee's got this scar from the halloween when the jessons were passing out full-size snicker bars. so excited to have scored a full-size snickers, i charged down the sidewalk -- snickers! snickers! -- to where mama was waiting in the car, when bam! down i went, felled by a gypsy skirt. my knee hit the aggregate (EVERYone had brown river-rock aggregate walks in that neighborhood) -- my knee hit the aggregate with the full force of 9-yr old excitement and my joy turned to tears. no mouthwash was harmed at this juncture, but i did earn a wallop of a scar.

on the right there's no real excitement until the knee, where there's still slight, slight evidence of the "screw bump". oh, c'mon. get your mind out of the gutter. it happened when we still lived up north, so i was less than 5 years old. we were at the playground and i was on the jungle gym. you remember those half-dome erector-set contraptions that were a staple of playgrounds back in the day. yeah, one of those. i was up there climbing around, and came down too hard on my right knee. it didn't hurt too bad, but i was still teary over it. i distinctly remember mama saying it was cool to have a scar because that meant you had a story. she named it "screw bump" (oh, stop it.) because a screw made a bump on my knee.

there are other less "hollywood" scars - soccer injuries mostly - and currently a couple bruises, a patch of severely dry skin, a couple hefty calluses, one plantar wart, and one half-missing toenail. even the minor stuff has stories, but i won't bore you with all that.

the point is -- part of my history is written in my skin, and part of that skin is on my feet and legs. missing feet and legs can be replaced by prosthetic devices, sure, but how do you replace missing history?




(this is dedicated to all those who lost limbs when bombs went off in boston on 15 april of this year.)