Tree bark’s “tattoos” age more gracefully than human tattoos.
By Tom Poland, A Southern Writer
TomPoland.net
Young with her whole life in front of her, her complexion was flawless. On her left shoulder in forever flight was the blue outline of a butterfly. Ought to be a story there I thought.
“Tell me about your tattoo.”
“Oh, I just love butterflies. That’s all.”
I expected a revelation, perhaps a deep connection to something illuminating. Disappointed I was. Then a realization hit me. Something must be wrong with me. I don’t have a single tattoo, but I don’t need a tattoo. Life gave me scars, and every scar tells a story whether you want it to or not.
On the first play of my first football game an opponent ran over my left leg. His posts had no cleats. Two screws ripped out chunks of flesh that looked like stew beef. The team physician shot me up, cut the flesh away, and stitched me up. Played the rest of the game. To this day I can stick a needle in the scar and feel nothing. Won a few bets doing that.
While jogging in a state park, I ran past a boat trailer. A dog beneath it rushed out and bit me on my left knee. No rabies. A scar instead. And apologetic owners. Several stitches later I was good as new.
Fifty-one stitches snake across my left palm and up my index finger. Just nine years old, I was climbing an outbuilding at my Grandmother’s farm. About four feet off the ground I sunk my palm onto the business end of an upturned nail. I did the worst thing I could do. I let go. The nail ripped my palm and finger open.
Arthroscopic surgery cleaned up a torn meniscus and left scars. My running days over, coronary disease picked up the pace, fueled in large part by my lack of discipline.
An inch-long scar resides beneath my right knee where vein removal for bypass surgery gave me a few more years . . . I hope. Thanks to a zipper-like 5-inch scar and drainage tube incisions my chest looks like it took a burst from a machine gun.
Oldest among my scars are third-degree burns. Dead center my chest is a silver-dollar-sized burn scar. Round and perfect. Across my throat is a pale, ghostly reminder of the hot coals that gave me my scar on my chest. These scars create a mystery I’ll never solve. Time is running out for this codger.
So ends the tour of scars you can see. Others hide inside. Stories for another day.
Unlike the butterflies, roses, skulls, and reptilian sleeve tattoos some of you choose, my scars chose me. No needles. No dyes. Just bad luck and bad behavior.
Somehow I made it over Fool’s Hill with no ink. I don’t have some highly creative tattoo destined to age badly. My scars have aged with grace. They resemble what they have long been. Scars. I take solace in the words of Harry Crews.
“There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.”
That’s true as physical scars go. False as emotional scars go. They last forever, like tattoos.
You, the inked, you are legion. I cannot go anywhere without seeing you, Inked Tribe. Upon your ankles, your throats, arms, legs, the back of your neck, I daresay across your face. I even saw a fellow with his entire torso inked, his bald head and face topped it off. Sometimes I wonder . . . is he still alive?
I get it that tattoos are cool. They’re hot too. If you get an MRI, your tattoo may heat up a bit. What? How’s that? Metallic particles in the ink heat up when the magnetic and radio waves strike them. No worries, you will survive and so will your chosen beauty marks.
A lot of you’ve got ‘em and wish you didn’t. I believe it would be humane if rain washed away tattoos . . . washed away that ink and regret, giving you a new chance at life. Imagine a field rife with wildflowers with many sitting in the rain, clothes torn away, arms outstretched . . . Now, let the hate mail begin because I know it’s coming.
