Sometimes you just want cake.

I’m thinking about scars tonight. Childhood scars, last week’s scars, other people’s scars.

When I was little. Maybe six, no must have been at least seven? I was playing on the front lawn of our house in Richmond so I was certainly no more than eight. It was a long summer twilight and I could hear the sprinklers click and swish in the neighbour’s yards. I’d been helping Dad cut the grass, but he’d gone inside and I was alone, sitting cross-legged on the lawn. The damp new-mown grass tickling my legs where my shorts left off. As the blue deepened above I switched from using the edge clippers for their intended purpose to lifting them high and stabbing them deep into the earth. A powerful feeling reaching as high as I could, my hands not really big enough to master the smooth turned wood of the handles and then stabbing them deep into the turf. Such a satisfying feeling that shudder through the handles and the tremulous moment of resistance before the fibrous roots agree to surrender to the sharp heavy blades. The blades require a real effort to extract and so I do. And do again. Noticing that the mosquitoes are rising and a chill falling – I really should get inside. But once more with the blades, I’m grooving on my dominance of the blade and the earth and a rare moment alone too probably, before someone wonders where I am, what I’m doing.

Arms raised high. Blades glinting high thick and sharp and Whooom! I stab downward, through my right calf. What have I done? Shock I suppose is what happened next. Clippers withdrawn and flung aside. I was to be chastised for that in a couple of days for leaving them out to rust. The river of blood started down my leg and all I could think was I was going to be in such trouble for getting blood on my sock. I ran to the basement door. Far from the closest, but I all could think was to get to the bathroom and stop the blood from getting everywhere or I’d really catch hell. How I managed to stop the bleeding and bandage it myself I still have no idea. I must have been a half hour in the downstairs bath with the first aid kit and my blood-stained sock soaking in the sink. Mom always said cold water was the thing for blood stains. I remembered. Given the size of the scar I must have managed to get a good three inches of blade in the leg. I certainly should have had stitches, and such luck that the wound didn’t infect so by the time the Saturday night bath rolled around a band-aid and a one inch scab, albeit a heavy one didn’t even raise a parental eyebrow.

It seems that life this last 10 days has been such a bittersweet brew. All the salty and slick and crunchy and tough bits blended together like a really bad tasting smoothie that is good for you. But sometimes you just want cake. A small piece will do, really. But cake nonetheless.