"Scars and Maps of Change"

Crisanda R. Benson-Davis

The stars started falling sometime the summer before my freshman year in high school. I was half asleep when the first one lost its grip on my bedroom ceiling and smacked me right in the face. It scared the shit out of me. I was just floating in that place between asleep and awake when it hit me and jarred me from what could have been a peaceful night’s sleep. After that, though, it turned out to be just another sleepless night. And that is what I am. The product of too many sleepless nights, which led to too many self portraits, too few of which were any good. That and scavenging the kitchen for food and never finding what I want. It’s because of those nights that I know. I know what my food is. Everyone has that one food they always crave but can never figure out what the food actually is. Well, I solved the great mystery of my appetite. It’s always Rice Krispie Treats. And through all those sweaty summer nights the stars kept falling. It took many summers. Many nights of 3 am Accupulcoan cliff diving on TV and watching the moths collect around the bare light bulb on the back porch. I grew up subtlety and changed silently.

But that’s where I come to the problem. How do I even know that I changed? Can you measure change? Of course. It is measured in the number of tattoos someone has, or the number of piercings. It is measured in how many pounds they lost that month, or how many days a week they make it to the gym? Or it can be measured in by the inches the cut off their hair, or the number of the hair dye they used It can be measure in the years it takes for all the stars to fall off of a child’s bedroom ceiling.

Another way someone might measure change is by events that were particularly painful. I believe you can measure change by the scars a person collects throughout their life. Scars tell stories and you can count them as easily as anything else. I also think that tattoos can sometimes be considered scars. Especially if the person got the tattoo in remembrance of something especially painful that they experienced in their life. Change is measure in pain. And the tangible evidence of pain are scars and sometimes tattoos. Not all pain leaves scars or is immortalized in a tattoo, I realize this, but it is a start in the measurement of change a person has gone through in his or her life.

I got my first scar when I was three years old. Not too bad. I have to give my mother props for keeping out of lasting danger for three whole years before I got away from her. I was in gymnastics and I had to wear a leotard. I absolutely loathe leotards. They look ridiculous for one, and they’re a bitch to get off. Especially when you’re three years old. One day during gymnastics practice I had to go to the bathroom. When I got into the bathroom though, I couldn’t get the fucking leotard off. Keep in mind I’m three years old, now. I can’t get the damn thing off, so I end up peeing my leotard. Then, somehow, I manage to slip in my own pee and crack my chin open on the tile. I come out of the bathroom screaming bloody murder, completely covered in piss and blood, and I’m sure I gave my mother a heart attack on the spot. It was years before she let me go to the bathroom on my own again. I had to get stitches and of course this resulted in a nice stitch shaped scar.

The next scar of importance that I received wasn’t really my fault. Really. I was nine years old and it was the 4th of July. My dad told me to hold the Roman Candle. Then he lit it. I was wearing my Pocahantas sandals that day. I loved those things. I knew something was wrong almost immediately. The wind was blowing the sparks that the Roman Candle was spitting back at me, in my face, all over me. One of the little buggers managed to wriggle its way under the strap of my awesome sandal. The right one. Right on the ankle. It burned a pretty nice little hole into my skin before I managed to pry that damn sandal off my foot. Dad apologized. Dumbass. No, really, you’re supposed to hold the Roman Candle. Maybe that’s when I stopped trusting my father.

The next scar was entirely my fault. My brother and I were spending a week with my aunt and uncle during the summer when I was about 11 years old. Uncle Vic has a motorcycle and he took me for a ride on it. I didn’t jump off or anything psycho crazy like that. I was climbing off when the ride was over and hit my leg against the tail pipe thing. It was hot. 2nd degree burn hot to be exact. But here’s the kicker, as a child I hate going to anyone but my mother when I was injured, so I didn’t tell anyone about the burn until the next day. My bad. Probably should’ve gotten it checked out before then. We went to a fair that evening and my aunt actually got mad at me for not wanting to go on any of the rides. Granted she didn’t know it was because I was in so much pain I could barely stand, but once she found out, she felt pretty bad about that one.I blame my next scar on the stairs, because honestly, if I hadn’t tripped on them I wouldn’t have cracked my head open. This one takes a little explanation as to why I was running around my house at night in the middle of winter wearing nothing on my upper half but my bra. It was brother’s fault. My parents had gone to church that evening, leaving Colin and I at home alone. Bad things always happened when they left us by ourselves. We were bored, so Colin dared me to run around the house in just my bra. I was 12 so it was really more of a sports bra. No big deal really. Anyway, when people dare me to do something, I just can’t resist. That’s how I ended up drinking half a bottle of ketchup, but that has nothing to do with this other than it was a dare, which is the point I was trying to make in the first place, so, moving on...That’s how I came to be running around my house in just my bra at night in winter. It was the last stair too.

Everything slowed down to that really trippy, oh shit slow motion, and I actually had time to think, as I was hurtling toward the pavement head first, “Oh fuck.” Then I hit and there was a giant flash of light and I thought I might be okay. I started screaming for my brother, who upon reaching me informed me that I wasn’t bleeding, but he was standing on the wrong side of me. After we discovered the bleeding, we fucked around for a bit trying to figure out what the hell to do, and ended up calling 911 even though the hospital is right across the street from our house.

That’s the only time I’ve ever ridden in an ambulance. It was only for 2 blocks though, so I feel kind of jipped. They could have at least taken me for a spin before dropping me at the ER. There are probably rules about that though. I had to get stitches for that one too, on the skin underneath my right eyebrow. It’s quite a conversation piece.

My last and most recent scar come from just last summer. This one was all me. I won’t even try to get out of it. I volunteer at this camp for a week during the summer, and at said camp there is a golf cart. The staff uses it to transport heavy objects or gym equipment, or to just get someplace if they are in a hurry. The younger staff also use it for other reasons that the older staff members are not aware of. Sometimes we take it off roading on the trails in the woods, or just drive it recklessly and stupidly. It was the last day of camp and my friend Lynda was driving while I was sitting in the passenger seat. She said “Jump” so I did. Ouch. Gravel road. Amazingly I landed on my left side and did a sort of backward somersault and jumped right back up, sustaining only minor injuries to my left arm, in particular, my elbow. Looking back on this particular decision, I see now that I had actual reasoning behind it. At the time that this all went down I was in a state of fear. Totally and completely petrifying fear. I was scared all the time. Of growing up and moving out and going to college. I had never been so scared for such a long period of time. I was sick and tired of being scared, so I jumped, and I wasn’t scared to, at least for a little bit. Fuck. I jumped out of a moving golf cart onto a gravel road...college couldn’t hurt that much.