Dressing

When do scars become beautiful?  I have asked myself that question a number of times.  In fact, it is always on my mind.  I can’t shake it.  Love is part of the answer.  Beyond the scar we must look for the tatters of love and it is like a difficult book we have been assigned to read and the words make little sense, yet we struggle to find the true meaning of the red and white lines or in the mind where it shows with incalculable shiftings and footfalls of unexpected turns.  We usually feel sorry for the person and there is madness or mistake or torture.  Without love, we are only left with the scar, and its permanence, and in typical fashion, we turn away.

Scars are like telescopes viewing a star in the sky.  There is the obvious outward appearance and then there is the distance between you and some unknown world.  We can never reach something so far away and we are ignorant.  Scars are the product of  pain, an accident, a way of life, a passage, an attempt to know nothingness, an addiction, self-injury, a defect, a loud message to the world.

To the observer, they are mysteries that go unquestioned.  We dare not ask.  Yet, sometimes we are honored with the story of the scars.  The circumstances that gave them life.  Is it true?  Perhaps it doesn’t matter.  Maybe the telling of the tale is the most important thing.  Once I wrote, I can’t remember where or when, that scars are not necessarily bad for me.  I grew up with them and I still live with them each day under the sun.  On my body, there are only a few, but on others, who I love dearly, there are hundreds.  Some I can see, others not, and I try to cover each mark and wound with as much love and understanding as I can muster.  I kiss them.  The problem is, I always fall short.  How does one make what is wrong, right?  The only thing I can think of is love, even in the face of defeat and sadness, even with the loss of my dears, my dear sweet ones.

There is an ultimate secret to the scar that is only carried on the wind and there is really nothing more.  We are all so helpless in this life, even the strongest and the richest and the wisest.  Yet, there is the dressing of love.  Let us find it somehow.