bismarck

As far as I can tell, there are two different types of birthmarks. There is the kind that our parents see when they are first inspecting us after we come out of the birth canal. They count our fingers and then our toes—one, two, three, four, five—and there between the third and fourth toe of the left foot is a little strawberry discoloration that suddenly becomes the most beautiful non-flaw that has ever existed. When our parents show us off as new babies, strangers ask, “Did she get any birthmarks anywhere?” And our parents beam and say, “Oh yes, look right here just between her third and fourth toe, have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” And the strangers Oo and Aw about the beautiful little difference that is the first sign of a baby that has never existed before.

And we grow up a little bit and during recess in elementary school we show each other our birthmarks. Most of the kid’s are brown and in funny shapes. They are over the knees or behind the ears but all the kids show their birthmarks like a badge of honor, like a badge that has never been given to anyone else.

The sad thing about this birthmark is how it usually fades away by the time we get to junior high, and it only shows up from time to time at events like jumping into a freezing cold pool. And now I am leaning over and pulling my toes apart but there is nothing there, not the slightest remnant of my little strawberry birthmark badge.

And then there is the second kind of birthmark. The funny thing about this kind, is that it’s not really a birthmark. It’s just a mark that shows up and it still gets called a birthmark, because it usually looks the same. No one really knows why it shows up: maybe sun damage, or just general aging, or maybe for the same reason we get real birthmarks. That reason being, of course, that no one knows why and there is no reason. But it definitely has something to do with what we do to ourselves as our lives go on, whether that be intense sun exposure or simply just allowing the years to pass. So all the sudden I have a birthmark that I wasn’t marked at birth with and it is on the right side of my right leg.

And so here I am with life, fighting to hang on to the badges I was born with, and dealing with those that have been placed on me. Trying to combine the past with the present, and label it all “me.”

But in actuality, I don’t have anything to do with my own birthmarks, they’re just something I was given. They’re just there! Something I claim as my own and my own distinguishing features, but I am not distinguished by their existence, they are distinguished in and of themselves. I work with them and I make them mine, I make them part of me. With both the birthmarks that I started with but have since faded and the birthmarks that have since appeared.