it took forever to get the blood out. the shaved hair and glass. for days it all stayed with me, moments from a day that was almost my own finality.
you can’t get stitches wet when your head is infected. you can’t stand up long enough to pick out glass when your medicine is making you too sick to think about anything but the fleetingly sweet release of all food from your body.
and when it finished. when the blood was finally washed away, the glass clinked like tiny pebbles down the drain, the stitches, like tiny scabs, discarded.
all that was left was a fuzzy patch of hair. that, and a scar.
***
it was the same here. in this city where people died in their homes, on their streets; where windows were blown out and stomachs empty…here in new orleans, like that harrowing road in mozambique that left me stranded and dangling in a wreck of a car, it was the same scene. blood and glass.
and in the same greatful breath that cries out how bad it is, how much it hurts, how much is lost – a voice rejoices that for all the tears and brokenness it could have been worse.
only worse is an abstract concept when life and death meet and become acquainted…friendly. sharing the same space. one world overlapping another. spray painted indicators scrawled on the sides of buildings that reveal rescues on time…rescues too late…
fleshless scars to remind those that would forget that worse is relative.
***
the city has her distractions…new construction, parks with fountains water gleaming in sunlight. i have mine…wild hair and dangling earrings. we are the same -rising waters and harsh sun – dry heaves and asphalt- all forgotten for the moment until a glimpse of scar. the first floor of a shotgun house – red scar against the white paint, indented lighting bolt – coffee colored against caramel skin. the reminders of where water meets land, skin greets road, life meets death.
and even as scars fade, even as time processes them and they become the usual…the norm of my everyday reflection, somewhere in my mind i always see them, always see the moments that collided and left their mark , on buildings – on my profie – for me to view.
Tags: katrina, me-ness, neworleans, travel