My body is a map of treasures, challenges, history. Its topography is anything but predictable. There are manmade markings and natural wonders and trying-to-stay-hidden secrets. There are obstacles to overcome and stains where time has spilled. Crooked lines, sunken landscapes, never-before-seen so-and-sos.
There’s a purpled splotch of veins just below the valley between two toes. Another webbed blob cups an ankle, and a fat indigo snake rests along the inner bridge of my extra-long foot. Pooled blood beneath the skin. Poor circulation. Feet squeezed into too-small shoes. Genetics. Maybe all of the above
A pedicurist once asked if the bursts of violet were a rash. She theatrically snapped on latex gloves and went on to detail the rash spreading across her belly, a rash I caught her scratching sometime between buffing and massaging. A rash swelling into a vast shadow on her map.
Ingrown hairs, shaving nicks, and unsightly razor burn have sprouted from my thick-ish ankles to the tops of my not-so-firm thighs. Between these two poles are more electric shocks of mauve – networks of silky spider lines that multiply each year. And sometimes, when anxious, in the heat, after too much wine, just because, they’re joined by families of prickly, itchy pink specks. My body’s unusual abundance of histamine unpredictably overflows like lava.
An uneven streak the thickness of thread stretches across a kneecap – commemorative of surgery to correct cartilage. A knife also sliced into a point on the back of my left thigh, where a slight indent is the only evidence of a biopsy that got the all clear.
Veins bulge out of each leg. Sausages. Slugs. Slug sausages. And when I squish the skin of my thighs together, the cauliflower florets growing are ripe enough to munch.
A forever memento from my senior year of high school, an incision was made below my pubic bone on the same day a gash unfastened my belly button, so a camera could step inside and sightsee the hollows of my body. The images came out picture perfect – proving it’s what you look like on the inside that counts.
Hairs grow from my navel. Pluck. Hairs grow from my nipples. Pluck. Hairs grow from my chin. Pluck.
Caution. Alert. Suit-up. The two great big caves beneath my arms, arms with constellations of freckles, stink and reek and perspire. And they’re not the only grottos on my map that have known stench.
Shoulders back. Don’t slouch. Stop stooping. Rounded towards my computer screen, my spine sculpts a new curve that older age will only deepen. It slopes up my neck, leaps over the hump of a mole, to my crown – a tangle of copper curls and frizz only tameable by an iron and set wild in humidity.
And then there’s the face. The woe-is-me part, the I-can’t-believe-I’m-almost-40-and-still-dealing-with-this-bullshit-puberty part. The pimples, the blemishes, the angry red bumps. The divots and crevices, the scars, adorning my cheeks, my nose, my chin. Labeled with a bold X on my atlas. The trigger for tears and an assault on confidence. Twenty-something years of good days and bad days and in-between days and I-can’t-look-you-in-the-eye days. Hormones, stress, and allergies are my map’s trolls.
My map. It’s not complete. It’s in progress. A weathered document of features. Characteristics. Story. A blueprint of a life lived. Nature. Biology. Science. A natural, unfiltered portrait. Me.
It’s a world explorers haven’t traveled broadly. Some linger on their visit, touch several territories, give back to the land. Some don’t stay long, some don’t touch, some only take a quick look. They don’t always see all the places I see.They consult their own maps. They compare other maps.
They and I sprint for artificial mountains, sand-imported beaches, and manicured gardens – razing the natural, the raw, the original in favour of brand-new. Destruction. Aka perfection. Isn’t that what everyone is looking for, striving for?
Yes. No. Maybe. But…
Imperfect can be perfect too. Intricate knots in tree trunks are mystical. Wrinkled elephant skin is magnificent. Blackened clouds infiltrating a clear sky are muses for great painters. Ancient and battered buildings are iconic.
And have you heard of a nebula? It’s a cloud of interstellar dust and gases. Pink and red and messy. It blemishes the night sky with its passionate chaos of creation. It’s a gorgeous phenomenon against an impeccable backdrop of stars. It creates life.
My body is chaos. My body is beautiful.
Your body is chaos. Your body is beautiful.
Illustration: Chelsea Leifken<