Not a pretty picture

I apologise if this picture of my inner thigh is unpalatable, but oy, is it ever a shiner.

I don't bruise very easily, as least not on the skin.  I'm a clumsy person and I walk into doorknobs and bump my head, but you can very seldom tell.  That's part of the reason why I'm taking pole-dancing lessons.  I'm clumsy, and it's hard.

Other girls in my class who are of typically Singaporean build and lithe and skinny hang off the pole with ease.  I'm not light on my feet or graceful and the entire class is often a struggle for me.  But that's why I do it.  I wanted to go back to doing something that hurt, that made me weep with effort, that if done right would one day make me feel invincible.  I wanted a fight.  

I've never understood girls who are shy about exercise blue-blacks and who hide them under long pants and maxi-skirts.  I like my battle scars to show.  It's like saying: "I'm challenging myself and I'm taking great pains to do it."

Yesterday's lesson was particularly difficult.  I've been having an emotional time and to cap it off, I'm terrified of heights.  I'm at the bottom of the class, always a step behind all the girls around me.  But I'd like to think I get there eventually.  I'd been working hard the last couple of weeks, and my flesh finally caved.  Finally, I came home and admired the bloom under my skin and wondered why I feel this way about display.  Then I remembered this bit from a novel I really like, White Oleander.

The protagonist, Astrid, has spent time in a children's home, watching one of the girls cut herself and wondering why she keeps tracing over old scars.  Eventually, in a foster home, she gets attacked by stray dogs and gets a face full of wounds herself:

"I walked past her and took the first of the Vicodins, scooping water from the faucet.  I went down to my room without saying a word, closed the door, and lay on my bed.  In a perverse way, I was glad for the stitches, glad it would show, that there would be scars.  What was the point in just being hurt on the inside?  I thought of the girl with the scar tattoos at the Crenshaw group home.  She was right, it should bloody well show."

                                                 - Janet Fitch, White Oleander