That's Going to Leave a Mark!

It’s absolutely true. You start as an unscathed and pristine canvas. And then LIFE puts its mark on you.  

When I look at my left hand, there’s a crescent-shaped scar, with 2 small dots above it, over my middle knuckle. It was the Summer of 1968, and I crashed into a parked car on my bike. Yeah…I’m really that klutzy. And the stitches were left in too long, so my father took them out, with a nail clipper, no less. Nothing like a little home-surgery to create lasting memories, huh?

My right knee, still, has a nasty mass of scar from the Autumn of 1972, when my junior-high PE teacher, Mrs. Sharp, told me that the hurdles couldn’t hurt me. My lack of coordination has certainly kept me from a career in the Bolshoi, but crash-test dummy surely beacons?

Of late, I wear a simple 1-inch line, that is still a little pink, mid-point between my armpit and what’s left of my right breast, where a lymph gland, called a sentinel node, no less, was taken away for questioning under bright lights, never to return. And hidden under my falsely-inflated breast, too, is a quite discreet reimagining of a simple skin fold, where age would have naturally caused a bit of sag, but where, in fact, a scalpel has sculpted an access for a future creation.

It all tells a story. And I am happy to be here to spin the tale.