otoh

At around the same time as I was starting to blog last year we were hit with very severe weather (hurricanes) and I was without electricity for a few days. I wrote a few letters and mailed them off to people that I had lost touch with: a couple of former coworkers that had moved away, a friend from college, and an old flame. (I couldn’t decide between “old girlfriend,” “ex-girlfriend,” or “former girlfriend” so I compromised with “old flame.”) The two former coworkers emailed me back soon after and we’ve been keeping in touch again since then.

I feel the trembling tingle of a sleepless night
Creep through my fingers and the moon is bright
Beams of blue come flickering through my window pane
Like gypsy moths that dance around a candle flame

And I wonder if you know
That I never understood
That although you said you’d go
Until you did I never thought you would

People move in and out of our lives all the time. I occasionally see posts about “firsts”: first kiss, first date, first sex, etc. I find it interesting how we mark those milestones in our lives when “lasts” seem to be more influential sometimes. What makes them so insidious is that we don’t always know until long after the fact. Phone calls dwindle down to nothing, letters become just a card once a year before that stops too, emails are just forwards of lame jokes until one of you changes ISPs and even those come back undeliverable. Months or years later you wonder, “”Whatever happened to…?”

Not always. I met a woman several years ago that had a “last” she couldn’t let go of. Her brother had died in an automobile accident and the last time she saw him before that they had had a fight. The guilt she felt at having his last memory of her being one of anger was eating her up inside. When I met her, she was in therapy and drug counseling. I don’t know if she ever pulled out of the spiral or if the guilt eventually killed her. I do know what it feels like to be forgiving of everyone but yourself.

Moonlight used to bathe the contours of your face
While chestnut hair fell all around the pillow case
And the fragrance of your flowers rest beneath my head
A sympathy bouquet left with the love that’s dead

And I wonder if you know
That I never understood
That although you said you’d go
Until you did I never thought you would

Never thought the words you said were true
Never thought you said just what you meant
Never knew how much I needed you
Never thought you’d leave, until you went

I get along well with most of my coworkers and most of my family. I’ve worked enough different places to know that coworkers will come and go and with few exceptions we won’t keep in touch when we’re not in proximity any more. Living 800 miles away from most of my family sometimes helps with that part…. There are a few people that I feel really close to. That old flame was one of those and I was sad to think we had lost touch forever.

Morning comes and morning goes with no regret
And evening brings the memories I can’t forget
Empty rooms that echo as I climb the stairs
And empty clothes that drape and fall on empty chairs

And I wonder if you know
That I never understood
That although you said you’d go
Until you did I never thought you would

I started a draft of this post a couple months ago. (Okay, the draft was all in my head, not written down anywhere. But I often write that way. It saves on erasers.) And then last week I got an email from that old flame. I hadn’t heard the last of her quite yet. But maybe soon….

P.S. Yes, I know leaving a cliffhanger like that might be construed as jerking you around.

[Empty Chairs - Words & Music by Don McLean]

A little over a year ago I spent a week in Panama. One of the many highlights of the trip was a visit to a Kuna village where the photo below was taken. The women all wear these very bright colors. The children were as curious about us as we were about them and eager to pose for photos.

Our guide, Luigi from Extreme Panama, told us later that they asked about the photos. He has taken other groups there and the locals never see the photos. We promised to make extra copies and we sent them back. You can read more about the trip here or jump right to more photos here.

On my right eyelid I had a cyst removed. Twice. The second time there were four stitches. The scar is at the edge of the lid just above the eyelashes. Even I can’t see that one unless I hold the lid closed and taut with my fingers.

My mother told me that I rode my tricycle up the front sidewalk and didn’t stop or turn when I got to the front steps. I went over the handlebars and face first into the concrete steps. I have no recollection of that incident. I don’t even remember noticing that I have a faint scar across the bridge of my nose until I was an adult and was told that story.

I think I was about ten when I fell while running in a friend’s basement. I bit all the way through my upper lip. I don’t remember getting any stitches for that, but there is a bump there that gives me a bit of a crooked smile.

On the surface everything seems right
no one notices the dimness of the light
For the world outside our door
our smiles are oh so bright
On the surface everything’s all right

When I was a senior in high school I broke my right arm and damaged the radial nerve. After six and a half weeks in a cast, the bone had healed but I needed an operation to remove scar tissue around the nerve. My largest scar is about eight inches long and 1/4 inch wide from above my right elbow up toward my shoulder.

I think it was the summer between first and second grade when I crushed the tip of my right ring finger under a rock. It bled a little and I lost the fingernail. (The nail grew back, but I remember how odd it felt to have the nail bed exposed.) There’s a little scar from the nail to the first knuckle.

We have the grace of actors on the stage
We orchestrate the moves that complement the play
But the things that we believe in
we just throw them away
On the surface everything’s okay

I don’t know. I really have no idea how I got a one inch scar near the base of my left thumb. But I have one. It’s skinny and straight and a complete mystery to me.

When I was a freshman in high school I let a bit slip when I was taking it out of a drill press after drilling a piece of steel. The hot bit burned the edge of my left palm and now I have a jagged little scar there.

We say goodnight and then we close our eyes
To drift in different worlds far from each other’s sight
Dreaming of yesterday
when we held each other tight
And on the surface everything’s all right

I was born with a herniated umbilical. There are tiny scars radiating from my belly button and slightly longer ones to the left and right. My mother told me the doctors were just going to sew straight across leaving no belly button at all but she was afraid that other kids would tease me about it when I got older. As kids do, they found other reasons to tease me….

I think I was a couple months old when I had another hernia operation. I’m not clear on the details — whether that was caused by the herniated umbilical or they both had the same cause. The scar from that one is about six inches long on the left side of my belly. Really, really low on my belly. You’d never see that one either.

What are you thinking tonight
I don’t know you (I don’t know you)
My words disappear in the night
and there’s no one there to notice
Maybe our lives will never be the same

I have a dim recollection of tearing a gash near my left knee on a loose upholstery tack. I might have been five years old or so. I don’t think I got stitches for that either, but there is a two inch scar fading away there now at any rate.

I had a large (maybe the size of a nickel) mole on the back of my right calf. It never caused me any problems, but I had it removed on the advice of a dermatologist. Hmm, the same man that removed the cysts from my eyelid. That scar is about three inches long and half an inch wide at the middle and pointed at the ends.

But we can face tomorrow
if we can just get through today
I’m holding back the tears
while you’re pushing me away
But on the surface everything’s okay
yeah on the surface everything’s okay

Until I started making this list, I never realized how battered my body is. By nearly every measure I have had a good life. And we all have little bumps and scrapes along the way. It is the wounds you cannot see though, the broken heart and betrayal, that I think shape my life far more dramatically than any external damage.

I keep most people at a distance. I am shy, but not unfriendly. For the most part, I treat people politely and with respect. But I don’t really let them in. I wonder sometimes if that means the internal wounds have never healed, that I don’t have scars there because I pick at them, keeping them open and bleeding. Why would anyone do that to themselves? The scars on my skin are harder than the surrounding area and I don’t think they have any nerve endings in them. Hard and unfeeling… maybe that old heart is scarred after all.

[On the Surface by Rosanne Cash]