Today I got into a groove on the treadmill and peacefully closed my eyes to really get in touch with my inner rhythm. As those of you quite experienced with my inner rhythm have surely already guessed, this resulted in me flying straight off the back of the treadmill.
It got me thinking about injuries.
Independence Day weekend two summers ago, I found myself on a rock ledge overlooking a lake. From the water, several of my friends urged me to grab the rope in front of me, jump off the edge, and come join them.
This wasn’t a particularly crazy feat, but for me it was terrifying. Weighing my options, I decided that even given the high probability that I would find some way to mess it up, I would probably not die or regret it more than I might for taking the coward’s way back. It happens sometimes that I get irritated with my lack of decisiveness and decide to remedy it with behavior I realize in advance to be irresponsible. It was this kind of scenario that led me to grab the rope, close my eyes, and jump.
Several seconds later, I had come to and it dawned on me that I should probably get some oxygen into my lungs. I lifted my head out of the water (which was almost easier to do than not since incidentally, in this spot the lake was not more than 3 feet deep), and among the riot I had inadvertently incited, I heard one almost maternal voice very clearly. It was Tracey’s: “MARY! DON’T STAND UP; YOU LOST YOUR BATHING SUIT TOP! SLASH, DO YOU HAVE ANY TEETH LEFT???”
The moral of today’s post is that I should never close my eyes, ever.
So I spent the rest of that weekend with a huge bandage around my knee, which had split open on some rocks in the shallow water that was below me when I lost my grip on the rope. My ex-lifeguard friend brought me back to shore where I decided that a hospital visit was unnecessary and asked for some hydrogen peroxide. I remember watching half my leg foam up and thinking that though I probably couldn’t have done it again knowing the result in advance, I was sure glad I jumped. I still think that when I look at that scar on my left knee. It’s ugly, but it makes me think of one time in my life when I didn’t let fear keep me from something I wanted to do. Even if it was stupid.
Some of my scars have happy memories like that, like the one I got on my arm for trying to pick up an unwilling chicken at a petting zoo. Some are less happy, like the scar on my left thumb from a season rowing with a port who would express her frustration at our lack of coordination by purposely throwing the set to starboard, smashing my thumb between the oar and gunwale several times a day. Some have no memories, or secondhand ones, like the ones on my right cheek from being attacked by a dog as a small child. But I like all of them inasmuch as they’re signs of experience (if not progress), and I wonder, aside from the obvious effects of aging, how my body will be different when I’m an old woman, what scars will seem so at home and natural on my body where now the skin is smooth and unmarred. Or if those little footnotes might save me from senility when I start to forget.
My parents’ next-door neighbor and friend Frank passed away yesterday after a tragically delayed cancer diagnosis. He and his longtime love, Lottie, were just married a couple months ago. Few people who read this have had the pleasure of knowing him, but I think it’s always important to note when someone dies because it’s important, and there’s no better way to honor someone who won’t see tomorrow than to make your own the best it can be.
Scars can be beautiful. I have one on my knee from when I was 6 riding a bike through a field, it was so overgrown I didn’t see the huge rock my front tire was about to hit. In turn I fell off and a sharp pointy rock stuck itself into my knee. It reminds me of some of the finer joys of childhood, flying through that overgrown field so free.
— Dawn Feb 5, 11:47 AM [link]