The Song of the Dolphins

The Unexpected Beauty of Scars

It might seem strange to start the year writing about scars but we all have them. We can all show the physical scars and we alone know the shape of our emotional scars.

Physically, it’s been a difficult year for me. In 2007, I fell and snapped a tendon in my foot. A casual phone call to ask to be ‘popped past casualty’ turned into three major surgeries, the last of which was a triple fusion of the ankle in July. My foot is an interesting mix of bolts and scars. I’m waiting for Stephen King to write a book about a demonic foot. I think it’ll be a thriller.

At the start of December, we went to Zanzibar. We were looking forward to an island retreat and swimming in azure seas. The week before we left, I went for a check-up on what I like to call The Foul Head (TFH). TFH has a lovely basal cell carcinoma, a gift from many years of tanning myself to a cinder. (Are you wearing a hat as you read this? I don’t care if you’re inside, put one on at once!) Sigh, after two years of being clear, my old friend BCC was back. I spent the day before we left for Zanzibar sorting out the surgery that would be required on my return.

Dolphins off Mnemba Atoll, Dec 2014

Our holiday was wonderful and it left me with two recurring thoughts. The first came from a fabulous day of snorkeling off the Mnemba Atoll, in the type of sea that you think travel agents have photo shopped. We were lucky enough to swim with dolphins. Julia had joked with me the day before about the healing powers of dolphins. They didn't, as she had suggested they would, prod me from every angle, but they did leave me with an enormous sense of peace. What a profound experience, to be suspended in that turquoise water and to be part of an aquatic ballet. It was only later, watching the video on my underwater camera, that I heard their clicks and singing. 

The photo, part of this post, will always sing to me. It will remind me that crutches, emotional and physical, can be left behind if we choose to immerse ourselves in beauty and become part of the ballet that is there. Of course life is tough, of course we have been hurt and been responsible for hurt. That is the human condition. The choice, however, to seek beauty over bitterness is ours alone.

The second thought concerns the wonderful plastic surgeon who has worked on TFH over the past eight years. He doesn't do cosmetic surgery. Instead, he chooses to work with the burnt, broken and diseased. It is thanks to him that I still have a scalp; even if it does tell a story like a patchwork quilt. He has removed the diseased tissue with such delicacy. He chooses to give his patients their best shot at being beautiful.

Before the surgery, I had been prepared for the possibility of a third skin graft. I had expressed my fear to my wonderful Julia that I might come back from surgery looking like the Phantom of the Opera. She looked at me with that Julia frown and said: ‘I married you for your heart, not your head.’ She made the choice to see beauty. I will give it my best shot to have the heart that she loves.

Scars are beautiful, if we can make them a reminder of the journey and what we have overcome. They can be a symbol of power.

2015 will bring its scars

. Won’t you remind me, if I forget, to listen for the song of the dolphins?