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?


Comments

  1. Pat Pughe-Parry2 January 2015 at 21:32

    Beautiful Ruth, and Julia is right. With a generous and beautiful heart and mind, physical looks are superfluous.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous23 April 2015 at 02:15

    I used to find reason's to come to your classroom and steal a glimpse of your teachings. I prayed for other teachers to be ill so that I might have a sub with you, and learn a little more, a little differently. I think you may have been wise to this and invited me to join in with the older girl's lesson a few times. It was beautiful the way that you could turn a lesson into a marvel, a dance of emotions that left me euphoric for the rest of the day. I was bewildered, eager and awed. Others had insisted that my passion for the written and spoken word was folly, and without being allowed to present my passion I was so lost. In those few classes that I should never have attended, you mended my own wounds and allowed me hope. My scars are now just a surface wound, and not a deeper ache, because of you. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Now is the Time for Courage

Image
A new year beckons. Before you know it we will be challenged by another 1st of January.  It's time to effect the change for which we yearn. Along come all the hopeful resolutions that briefly see the light of day before dying their usual death. Don't make resolutions - again I spoke to a group of people recently and asked them if they had made resolutions for 2020, many of them had. Most were horrified when I told them to ditch their grand plans as they would cause more stress than they were worth. The 1 st of January is like some magical line in the sand – there is a vague hope that we can step across the line and suddenly be all the things that we haven’t been for the last X number of years. The right inspirational moment Things that need to get done, get done. If you amputate a finger while cunningly carving a radish to decorate a salad, you don’t sit on the couch waiting for the right inspirational moment to go to the closest casualty room. You put your finge
Read more

Have The Conversation

On Thursday, I was invited to discuss my poem Black and White with 90 Grade 7s. The poem is about my second mother, Johanna Rapule. At the end of the talk, the girls asked a number of questions about the poem but there is one that has haunted me ever since. ‘What would you say to Johanna if you could speak to her again?’ The easy answer would be to tell her that I loved her. The real answer would be the deep regret that, although she knew my hopes and my dreams, I never knew hers. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, it seemed normal to have Johanna living in the tiny khaya at the bottom of the garden. It was normal to have her cook and clean and iron. I was five; my world was shaped by adults. As I grew up, visionary teachers, like Maureen O’ Gara, awakened me to the injustice that kept Johanna in her place. As a student, I protested and waved placards. We ran from the police down the streets of Benoni. We wrote angry poems, smoked furiously and drank too much wine.
Read more

Tear Ducts, Onions and Chillies

Image
I’ve had a blocked tear duct for at least two weeks. It looks a little like I’m keeping a giant Easter Egg under my eye. I’ve checked, there’s no Lindt or Geldhof surprise waiting for me, which is a pity. I refuse to visit the doctor for something as puny as an eye duct. When I go, I like to tick off things like back ops, neck fusions, foot reconstructions or the odd skin graft on the troublesome head. Eye will not admit defeat to something the size on a pin prick. I have tried various methods to unblock the duct. Using my powers of deduction (see what I did there?) and Google, I set about finding a solution. Dr Google suggested a hot compress. I heated up a face cloth and reclined on the couch in a tragic pose, calling faintly for tea. The compress did nothing. I’m still hoping for the tea. The next was to try an eye solution. I poured drops into my eye. Nothing helped. Julia did mention that the drops were so past their expiry date that Noah may have dropped them of
Read more