Word Number 4 Scabulous

Word Number 4 Scabulous

Part 1: Between Living and Dreaming

Seeing the World as it is, and as it could be

Definition

Adj. proud of a certain scar on your body, which is like an autograph signed to you by a world grateful for your continued willingness to play with her, even if it hurts.

From scab + fabulous.

"The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” by John Koenig

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Scars tell stories about our lives, each mark a memory. Some we offer up proudly when asked, others we hide under long sleeves or jewelry, makeup and tattoos. Regardless of how we got them, these scars are a visible depiction of what our body has endured, the pain that makes up our own personal reality.

While drip drying this June at a mostly secluded campground next to the American River in Northern California with two of my favorite people, I noticed a large scar on one of their legs. A mostly straight line down the inside of this right thigh, noticeably lighter than his already pale olive skin. It was high enough to only be visible due to the short length of the lifeguard red swim trunks he was wearing. As I sat, I attempted to imagine the ways in which you could get a scar that large and high up on the leg. Was it a bike accident? I knew he had severe shoulder surgery following a particularly bad bicycle crash some years ago. Maybe a vicious dog had bitten him, or he got in a knife fight with the kitchen staff as the manager for a white tablecloth restaurant in Florida. A lull in the conversation gave me the opportunity to ask and he was happy to let me record the story. In his low, enthusiastic voice, rich with an Italian accent, he began.

“It was sometime in the early 90’s in southern Italy where I was growing up, we were at our summer house, beach house and on this particular day”

“What did the house look like?” I interrupted

“I don’t know how that’s relevant to the story, Max wants to know what the house looks like” he says to my iphone recording app, as if it too is part of the conversation.

“I’m just trying to paint a picture, as you know I’ve never been to Italy so in my head any house looks like one of the painted ladies in San Francisco but the road is a canal with those long boats floating down them” I say raising my hands to depict the size of the boats.

He eyes me, unsure how serious I am then sighs and shakes his head at the phone as if they are good friends sharing an inside joke.

“The house was one floor, stone with a manicured lawn and brick pathway that led through an archway overgrown with white star jasmine paving the way to the door.”

“Is that it? You’re a bad painter” I respond

“What? I described it what more do you want? It was a simple house by the beach in Southern Italy.” He says enthusiastically, talking with his hands.

I roll my eyes, “fine fine, I’ll make up the rest myself, continue” I say smiling

“So, my mom the neat freak that she was and still is, decided to clean all of the glass, rather, full, sliding glass doors in the house. She spent the entire day cleaning them leaving them completely, completely invisible by the time she was done. But, back in the day, we did not have tempered glass in the house. I’m sure it was invented but we did not have it installed in our house yet, it was just regular glass, so if it was ever broken you would have, shards of glass, hanging from the frame.”

He pauses and leans back further in the cloth camping chair. Eyes not looking at me but moving to recreate the scene in his head.

“I had been running around the house with my friend and the sliding glass had been open all day as we were running in and out of the house, to the front yard then around to the back, chasing each other, and at some point my mom had shut that sliding glass door but I didn’t realize it and I ran right through, just dove right into it cutting my left finger on both the outside and inside and even worse, the inner part of my right thigh.

He rubs the scar on his leg as if the recalling brings back some of the pain and shock of the moment. My face crinkles, bracing for what is still to come.

“I started bleeding, quickly finding myself in a puddle of blood, time slows as a large shard of glass, hanging from the frame is still dangling several seconds after I had gone through.”

My right hand is over my mouth in a gasp.

“No” I quietly say, edge in my voice.

“But this shard misses, since I had already gone through the frame and landed on the porch in the backyard. The last piece of glass falling restarted the clock. I started screaming and, not my friend, who was nowhere to be found, but my mom I think, called for my father, a doctor himself, who was at the neighbor’s house playing cards. I was rushed to the ER and given several stiches on both knees resulting in this big old scar I still have today.

“Look there's actually more than one” he twists his leg around in the chair to show me multiple areas of discolored skin I had missed earlier.

I wince again “Eegh in such a sensitive area too” Rubbing my own thigh now.

“Yeah, all from the same incident, we got tempered glass installed after that, but it didn’t stop my dad from putting up a big piece of duct tape across the front of the sliding glass so nobody could run into it again. It was there until I was 16.”

“and this happened when you were how old?” I ask

“I believe it was the summer of 1988, so 7.”

“Anything else to add? I say reaching for my phone back”

“Nope and that’s my contribution, good luck and thank you” he adds before handing it back to me

“It’s going to just be me listening you dork” I say laughing at his politeness to the phone.

Listening to the story a couple months later I can’t help but envy the resilience of children. How even an incident such as this did not stop him from running and playing just as much as he did before. Arguably the friend was more emotionally scarred. But it was the parents who put up the duct tape worried his playfulness might cause it to happen again.

I have been thinking about how much more suspicious I am of the world and its ability to hurt me than I was as a child. I remember crashing on my bike after my shoelaces got caught in the chain and literally just getting back on, knees bleeding as I continued to ride down the road to the lake. Later my dad would pick the road out while I wailed about how I’d rather just keep it there. I was on the bike again a week later.

These days I am unsteady on a bike even though I haven’t crashed in years. If I do ride it’s on a stationary bike where it would be impressive to hurt yourself. It’s too dangerous to ride on the road here, too many cars, too small of a lane. Always another excuse. The adult mind is such a pain sometimes, overanalyzing and calculating the danger in a certain activity. I miss the days of childish freedom where I didn’t know what was scary and what wasn’t. The hill I would ride my scooter down fast enough to melt the bottom of my shoe was not scary, nor was using a sled to careen off the side of the hill out back of my childhood home, what we called “dirt sledding,” I haven’t tried this in years, but I doubt I’d have the same energy towards these activities anymore. It has been a goal of mine to challenge this fear, I hope to put myself in more situations that make me uncomfortable in the future, maybe even gain a couple new scars. After all comfort, not change is the real enemy.

Scabulous, be proud of the scars on your body, they tell a story, your story.

Yours,

Maxie

Next

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References

Koenig, John. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.