Scars: An Inventory

Your skin tells your story, JP used to say.



Left temple: small indentation, about the size of a chicken-pock. (Much as I disagree with my mother, I've got to give her credit for this: "Don't pick at that" is very good advice.)



Right forearm: thin line, about an inch long, four inches above my wrist. When I was ten, I had a swimming pool in the back yard. My best friend and I were jumping around and my right arm hit her in the mouth. She had braces.



Right knee: small irregular spot, dead white, about an inch under the kneecap. I was running in the backyard, wearing shorts; I tripped somehow, and just slid.



Right wrist: two short, mostly faded thin lines, one on each side. No, not what you'd imagine. A few days after my eleventh birthday, I broke my arm roller-skating; the next summer, the doctor told my parents that one bone was growing but the other had stopped. The only answer was to stop them both from growing, so the summer I was twelve they did surgery to fix it and I spent my twelfth summer in a cast as well. My right arm is still about half an inch shorter than my left.



...the story of my childhood--pampered, accident-prone, always lovingly mended.



Right elbow, inside surface: one small dark spot, about the size of a pencil eraser, directly over the vein.



Left elbow, inside surface: two small dark spots, likewise.



Back of left hand: two thin parallel lines, running along the veins.



Back of right hand: likewise.



Left thigh: a pair of spider-veins that never healed, about two inches above the knee; from trying to shoot up into what appeared to be the only visible remaining vein I had.



Right forearm: small dead white spot, about eight inches above the wrist. Result of a skin-shot of heroin which was filled with cotton fibers; while the wound was healing, I could pull tiny threads from under my skin.



...the story of my 20's--the drawing on the envelope, clues to what was beneath, had anyone cared to read them.



Right ear: three piercings, one tiny pinhole scar. The pinhole, long-healed, from a piercing that reminded me of someone I'd rather have forgotten. One from when I was a child. One I did to celebrate my freedom, shortly after I left my first husband. And the third--the one JP and I had done together. I've worn that earring since the morning of his funeral, over nine years ago; if there's anyone left to follow through on my wishes, I want to be buried with it when I die. The other, I buried with him.



Left ankle: an initial.



I have never spoken of this scar before. It looks like any other scar. But it is a story all its own.



We each left an indelible mark on the other, JP and I; in the physical realm as well as the emotional. My mark was on his forearm; his mark was on my ankle. Both were made intentionally, both were made with the other's full consent, a gift incomprehensible to anyone but each other, like so many other things about us.



Your skin tells your story, JP used to tell me.



His mark is still on me today.