War Wounds

When I was ten, my friend and I pricked our fingers and became "blood sisters." The paths in the park were " Indian trails", the scrapes and cuts from tree climbing and falling from bikes were "war wounds." We had learned that Indian braves were proud of the scars of battle.

Maybe I can feel the same way about the lines in my face, the pains in my neck where I hold the violin, the sagging place where my womb used to be.

I went to Riverside Church on Easter and the minister gave a sermon about scars, about Jesus wanting the disciples to see the wounds from the nails in His hands, the great cut in His side. The preacher said that when he visits patients post surgery, they always want to show him the scar of their incision. He said that he realized that this was not morbid but their way of saying, "Look what I've been through and survived. Look how I am alive." That is a message of the Resurrection, he said, that we can have new life when we think we have nearly died, and our scars are there to remind us.

My body is a map of my struggles and excesses, my strengths and my weaknesses, where I have put my love and energy and what I have neglected because I thought I could go on forever by sheer will. In the great cathedral of Riverside Church I could feel the hopes of this vast congregation of black, white and Asian, prosperous and poor looking for new beginnings and healing of the dark regrets of winter.