delicate scarring

If life is such a miracle then why do newborn babies look like three day old slow roasted peanuts? It's only after they've been cleaned up and get some shuteye that they start to look like the miniature treasures they are known to be. Newness is gorgeous, youth is briefly admirable, and in our culture we hold onto it for far too long.

We don't value age. Age is often treated as a failure. Old is even a synonym for tiresome. Vanity comes in the form of wigs, snoods, toupees, face lifts, lypo, vaginoplasty, and Botox injections. It's the texture of life that's interesting. Life shows itself in the cavernous depths of wrinkles, the sharpened peaks of a widow's, striking rivers of veins, and the harsh memories of scars. Walls that can talk have always been far more interesting to me. I would rather discover a patina finish or a pentimento surprise than get stuck with the emptiness of a life left breathless and sealed in its original collector's box.

Since I decided to undertake my own version of this '30 Day Challenge', I got to thinking about scars. It drew me to thoughts of lost limbs, adventurous accidents, and daring feats. At first glance nothing about me felt right for this challenge. I have been known to spend my time a bit too cautiously with nary a broken bone or traffic ticket to my name. But to me those are the obvious location of scars.

It's said that your body holds your history. All the heartache, every argument, every act of violence, and every time you stumbled into a wall drunk off your ass. If these rings of your theoretical tree could truly talk I wonder what would be said. We each have our zebra stripes, our unique design that tells the whole story. On the one hand we have the answer guide and the other shows our attempt to follow along, eternally painting outside the lines. Our paw print of sorts holds an ever-changing canvas, able to express everything we could never voice.