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Scar Me Beautiful
by Debbie Nelson
Scars. Memories permanently mark my body like the angel and devil artwork stained on the leathery skin of a tattoo artist. Virtuous or not, each carries an indispensable and exciting story, tumbling off my tongue like a book on an overstocked library shelf.
I parade these wounds from endless battles with unforgiving rocks, rose bushes, and aggressive sticks like the Citizenship award I received in 3rd grade. There is beauty in my scars and I find it pointless to cover them.
It sliced my left calf, a butcher knife through the pink flesh of a watermelon. Recklessly tumbling down the muddy banks, a large boulder left its mark, even through all the protective layers of earth and peach fuzz covering my exposed leg. Once a red, flowing stream of blood, now a pale stitch, a desiccated, incised river channel of the western desert.
White cracks cover the otherwise smooth surface, tattered and dry, like the alkaline clay of Owens Lake breaking under the sun. To the ancient, circus palm reader, these lines warn us of a desolate future, but to me they tell of the harsh and vital past, one of abused water rights and unknown consequences. Worn skin and barren land, exfoliating their layers of old, rotting granite, shaping the Alabama Hills, flexing with the weight of the ambitious climber making her way to the height of the pitch.
I see the beauty of everything from up here. It is in the strong presence of the White Mountains and the peeling of the Alabama Hills; in the extravagant watercolor portrait of freefalling water and dried up Trout Creek, now carrying heavy flows of rich cocoa: lush forests of the Sierra Nevada and the blackened corkscrew limbs entangling the Bristlecone Pine forest; the unbroken lines of construction orange cones lining the endless grey bands of concrete highways. These scars represent an invested land, a tattered body; beauty as a living, breathing soul.
Faded colors of red, white, and blue hide the wears and tears of a town, its American flag flapping during a compilation of patriotic songs honoring our country and our veterans. Its holey wounds from WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and Iraq become apparent as the glowing moon lights it up before the starry sky. These scars represent this town, their rights, their freedoms, and how hard they have fought for them.
They think this old flag is beautiful. For its scars it carries splendor, but for what it hides it weighs malice and disgust.
Is it not apparent that this flag is providing a hiding place for ignorance behind colors of bloodshed red, whitewashed memories and the blue, boundless skies? Manzanar, "the first of ten [Japanese] concentration camps" to open after the attack on Pearl Harbor is only eight miles north of here. Do they forget? How can they be proud of an old flag that represents a country denying its own citizens freedom, scarring their souls like thorns of a rose scraping an innocent child's hand? So many scars. And what do we cover them with? Sage brush and commemorative edition Lincoln Logs?
Sketched in the guest book of the Manzanar interpretive center, a child writes, "good thing our government has learned and this will never happen again." These words illuminate the consequences of our modesty. It is happening again, and in order to prevent it we must show this vulnerable skin and reveal the destruction we have caused, truly feel the pain and know the consequences of our actions. It is only then that our attitudes can even begin to change.
We have scarred our own with hatred and ignorance. Through clear cutting and road building, we have scratched and bruised the skin of the earth. Mining for gold and copper has left open wounds, bleeding with toxins. We try and cover these scratches with Band aids oozing with globs of "doctor approved" Neosporin, concealing our past, hiding the truth. But I say, let it scab, let it wrinkle, let it heal naturally. Remember the texture of those sandpaper scabs. Feel the power of our and earth's body healing itself, by itself. Share, through these scars, the profound stories of the past and enlighten the future of our mistakes. Disaster is sure to ensue if we try and hide these important scars.