“When morphine for injection was first introduced it was often injected just under the skin rather than intravenously, though this could lead to abscesses and scarring as shown here. This ‘morphinomaniac’ subject was a male nurse pictured shortly before his death.” (Illustration by H H Kane, 1881 - courtesy Wellcome Images)
Yo, Londoners! Get your lazy arses to Euston’s Wellcome Collection to check out their new show High Society.
1 year agoAs we get older, our skin changes miraculously and scars start changing shape. They don’t just grow, oh no, they shapeshift like dermal amoeba. It’s something that has always fascinated me tremendously. I’m not one to focus on wrinkles and the oh so dramatic signs of ageing that need to be eradicated by all means, no, I really like them as they tell stories in the most fundamental way, a bit like cave drawings. No, I’m more the type to obsess over scars.
An acquaintance of mine who has very dark brown skin with a beautiful olive glow has an impressive scar over one of her eyebrows going all the way down to her nose and it shimmers beautifully in the most sumptuous dark Baroque colours. It’s so exquisite how it moves with her face - it’s almost like a second mouth articulating emotions in a very ancient way. I could stare at it for hours yet cannot find the courage to ask her what happened as it’s definitely not a small scar.
I can’t even remember how most of my scars came to exist. I remember the one under my nose very well. The fun of turning my old ballet shoes into crocodiles with open jaws, the running around outside in them - oh so proud of my creation - not looking out for obstacles, the falling over, the hitting the cobblestones, the pain, the lying on the sofa with a bleeding nose, the soothing words and hands of my mum.
I can remember the horrible red scars on my left hand, obviously, that are the disgusting result of painful early childhood assimilation and self-inflicted injury when my stubborn 7-year-old mind decided to imitate my best friend’s birthmarks on her left hand by biting my own hand repeatedly with all the strength of my little jaws.
The one scar I truly love and relate to, however, is my polio vaccination scar on my left shoulder that has grown proudly and beautifully. I think I was the last birth year to get these done the cattle way, with a massive bolt (or so my memory paints it). They abolished this procedure for more “humane” ways in the 80s.
And then there’s all the BMX scars on my knees, the Doc Martens scars around my fibula area, the “hey, check out my knife trick!” scar on my left thumb that predicts the weather and serves as a barometer and the horrifically long bike vs tram line scar from my infamous Basel accident anno 2003 after which I sat in art history lectures with blood slowly dripping down the auditorium stairs to everyone’s disgust and my own private glee.
Oh, and the coconut knife vs my left hand incident where I stabbed myself so deeply and effectively into the web space between thumb and index finger that I could look deep, so deep into my hand and did so under shock before showing it to my dad saying “Look! You can see into my hand” before passing out on the kitchen floor.
But the strangest scar and the sole reason why I’ve started pondering about my scars in general is one I’ve only just discovered. It’s a very impertinent thumbnail shaped deep scar sitting all nonchalantly in the middle of my right cheek.
Where the hell did it come from? What/Who inflicted it? What’s its message to the world? And most importantly, does it come in peace?
2 years ago