Smith Says | Columnist | Berkeley Independent

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Smith Says

Published Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:38 AM

By Julie R. Smith
Berkeley Independent

Forgive me if I babble on today. The antibiotics I’m taking cause dizziness and possibly delirium.

The medicine is for—wait. Fair warning: Lay this column aside NOW if you’re eating, recently ate or may eat today.

The drugs are for a particularly nasty infection--a giant, painful cyst that recently erupted on my lower left jaw.

Words can’t do justice to this behemoth. It’s red, it throbs, it enters the room before I do. It’s the size and shape of a Jordan almond, those pastel, candy-coated nuts people never eat at wedding receptions.

It’s also my own fault. For five years I had a small acne bump on my chin that just stayed there. It bugged me every time I faced a mirror, and looked weird in photos. Plus, the injustice of having zits and wrinkles simultaneously just rankled my soul.

Thus, the last time I went to a dermatologist to have a mole removed, I pointed to the bump and said, “I want this gone.” He obligingly injected it with a steroid.

Sure enough, the acne bump vanished—swallowed up by this new, hideous growth, which appeared literally overnight.

When I showed it to Widdle Baby, he touched it and blurted, “Oh, Lord! Your poor face!” (Words no woman longs to hear from her beloved.)

I went back to the derm. He took one look and said, “I’d have a plastic surgeon cut that out.”

I toddled off to a plastic surgeon. She took one look and said, “No. This is too infected for me to touch. Take antibiotics for two weeks and come back.”

Now, all this seemed reasonable to me. A cyst isn’t exactly life or death. But two words kept running through my brain: “Another scar. Another scar.”

Yes, another facial flaw to add to my already impressive collection.

Every night, as I wash and moisturize my face with the latest potions that promise eternal youth, I mentally catalogue my scars. Some are raised, some are pitted, some are blurry smudges. Each has a tale to tell.

One of my brothers—I won’t call him by name but his initials are TB—was responsible for my very first scar in 1966, when he hit me in the mouth with a six-ounce Coke bottle. That left a mark, as we say here in the south.

Then there’s the lightning bolt above my left eye. One night, 15 years ago, I was yammering away on the telephone as I carried something into the guest bedroom. I tossed it on the bed and wheeled to walk out just as the heavy, out-of-plumb door swung shut. My forehead met the edge of the door, which split the skin with almost surgical precision. Now I have a jacked-up, Jack Nicholson eyebrow.

Next are several acne scars around the nose. A nasty bout of adult chicken pox left a few pits around the chin. My cheeks bear scars left from removing a few iffy moles.

I look, in the words of the late, great Lewis Grizzard, like I finished fifth in a knife fight.

As I creep towards 50, I kid myself that these flaws lend character to an otherwise unremarkable face.

In the end, we all have our unique battle scars. What are yours?

Julie R. Smith, whose Zodiac sign is Vanity, can be contacted at widdleswife@aol.com.

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