Scars

I’m standing in the still of the night under a hazy silver of moon that looks like a bowl just of above the trees that I call Fran’s thousands of green. There are stars above it and they look like sprinkles dropping into the bowl or cereal.

My neighbor has left all of the lights are on in her house, on her back porch and her television is on. She lives alone so maybe this is her way of adding additional protection. Maybe she just doesn’t want to feel alone. There is no sign of her anywhere so I assume she’s asleep on her sofa.

It’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m lost in thought standing on the back deck.

There is no breeze … no rustling of leaves and no birds are singing. There is no traffic in the distance. The only sound is that of my own breathing.

Goddess is asleep in the doorway of my bedroom with half of her body in the bedroom and half in the living room. She used to sleep on her benches or her bed but sometime over the past year some protective spirit kicked in and she sleeps like this every night so that whatever she thinks is coming to hurt me has to get by her first.

After half an hour of staring out of the five windows that I can see out of in my bedroom, I get up and step over her and come outside. I am restless for the future to arrive now. I want the things that I’m wishing for. I’m telling myself to concentrate on these things and go back to bed.

I’d woken up with the image of scars ... and the people who inflicted them on me ... and the ones that are self-inflicted. I reach down and rub the scar just below my right knee where the pin had been placed to straighten out a shattered leg.

I rub the scar under the upside down moon in the bright darkness of a funny night.

This scar is self-inflicted. I’d snuck out of the house to go dancing only to be hit by car shattering my leg. Six weeks in traction in the hospital, followed by eight weeks in a body cast, was followed by a shriveled leg half the size of its companion.

I remember going back to school for the first time in months, embarrassed when it was time for P. E. I remember Maurice making fun of the shriveled leg. We’d played football together. Then Coach Greg Talley told us to line up and run.

I couldn’t believe it!

But I ran, one strong leg followed by a remnant of a leg going through the motions. And it hurt. And the embarrassment grew because I was no longer what I was. Maurice and others laughed as I made my way to the finish line far behind the last person in front of me. I was sweating, gasping for far, my leg was killing me and I hated every damn one them.

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places,” Hemingway wrote. “But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”

In the midst of being broken … things were born inside of me that day.

I began to run. I did leg squats like nobody else would. I’d stand on the edge of steps and bounce up and down building my calf. Then I remember later racing past Maurice at the finish line and immediately turning just to watch him cross it behind me. Then I slapped my hand in the air dismissing him.

My finger traces the scar in the bright dark of an upside down moon.

The scars that were inflicted by others run through my mind. And I call each of them by name in the still of the night.

And I cuss them.

Something moves in the yard and I look down. The Palm Tree has a face … eyes, nose and mouth made out of oyster shells … and the haze of the moon illuminates the face. It smiles at me.

I stare at it, amused by my thoughts and its smile.

Then I’m struck that I’ll always have these scars. And the ones inflicted by others are far worse than the ones that I inflicted on myself. And I cuss them again in the middle of the night for stealing sleep from me when they’ve already taken so many other things.

But ...

It is that future that I care about.

And I will race passed the past …

Then I’ll turn around and smile ...

… because I am strong at the broken places ...

Then I go back inside, step over Goddess and sleep soundly.