Scars are gorgeous. Every scar tells a story of when we ran up hard against the edges of the world. It's the imprint of living to the limits of our capacity, but we rarely let our scars tell their tales. One day not so long ago, I noticed that one of my coworkers has a rather large scar on her chest. I'm very curious about that scar. I'm fascinated. There may be a whopper of a story there, and I want to hear it.
Speaking of stories, here's one: I recently had the opportunity to carry a baby around a major metropolitan area for several days. This tyke was unusually cute, good-natured, and unafraid of strangers. People I'd never met before would strike up conversations with me on the street, in restaurants, and on the subway. In our culture, it's perfectly acceptable for a total stranger to comment on the cuteness of the spawn of your loins. What could be more personal than that? Yet most people would agree that my colleague's scar is far too personal for me to ask about.
Why? We don't much like the stories that scars dare to tell: carelessness, fragility, mistreatment, forces beyond our control. Surgery. Abuse. Gravity. The shivery edges and bristles of the mean world where we live. They demonstrate our weakness and our liabilities. They're sure signs that we're damaged goods.
I have two thin scars on the back of my hand, marks of cuts from a long-lost, absolute moment of adolescent angst. Ten seconds from my life are embedded in my skin, and they may be there all my life. It's like having a stopped clock tatooed on my body. I'll have years to ponder whether it was a moment of absolute Pride or absolute surrender. The evidence endures. I'm not quite the same person who carved that opening and looked into the flow of time beneath, but that mark won't ever let me forget what once happened there.
I used to tell everyone that those marks were from a bike accident. It was simple and believable enough for me to seek shelter behind. You're the first to hear the true story. Aren't you proud?