Can the Ethiopian Change His Skin?

[Reflections]

It used to be, you could trace my crazy years with your finger, from the melted skin on my right wrist across to the map of scars and burns and scrapes that dotted my left arm, my belly, my thighs, down to the curved line that stretched over my left calf, like a pink wing trying to break free out my leg.

Now, if you put your finger on me, I would punch you and call the cops.

There wouldn’t be much left to trace anyhow, if you could touch me.

Life passes and one day you stop and look down, and your skin is whole. The scars have faded.

During the crazy years I collected those scars like trophies. They were my proof that I was alive. That I was going through what I was going through, even if there wasn’t a person in the world who knew about it, or cared. Those marks on my flesh were my boo-boos that promised a mommy’s kiss, even as mommy shouted that I was possessed by a dybbuk and slammed down the phone on me.

My body collected its last scar last summer. We were at the beach. The sun was hot and the waves danced wildly. Matthew went in to the cold water. I waited, meditating on our towel, the sweat dripping into the creases between my folded thigh and calf.

“Come in already, please, please come swim with me,” Matthew begged, breaking into my deep breathing. The sun had already burnt his nose red and his eyes sparkled, beads of water trembling on his eyelashes. I followed him, picking my feet around the towels.

Inside, there was a violence in the water that scared me. I jumped waves with Matthew and watched him slice into the ocean, slippery as a dolphin. But the water rushed fast and crashed hard and I started pushing to the shore.

“I’m heading back,” I called to Matthew.

I had made it to the edge of the crumbling sand when a wave came. I heard it, I saw it, glancing back, as it raced behind me, chasing me. The blue crest rolled up high, higher than me, higher than that.

I tried to run. As I lifted my feet the wave fell on my head, knocking me over, throwing me flat on my belly, scraping my body down the sand as it sucked back to the deep, dragging me behind.

I got to my feet, crying, ocean running from my nose, I scrambled on shaking legs for our towel. An arc of blood dripped down my stomach, over the old pink scars from years ago.

That was my last wound. At the beach. The fucking beach.

Who the hell am I anymore? A woman who gets her scars on summer vacation?

It’s been four years since the crazy times faded and my smooth skin tells me I am normal. You would think I was a regular goy. I look like everybody else.

I want to take a meat cleaver to this lying flesh, remind myself and the world where I come from and what I’ve been through, but the crazy times have evaporated and I am not capable of such things anymore.