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3-2-08

Her face was not at all what I had imagined during the forty mile drive to the Park. Even though I had never seen her before, I was immediately able to spot her in the immense crowd of people swarming around the tank like a school of fish themselves. The sea otters darting and diving through their faux-habitat of cement and glass paid no mind to her passing, but the surrounding people sure did. A few beer-can-chicken-looking hillbillies were even so rude as to follow her a few steps in order to get a better look. Subconsciously and politically incorrectly I hated Kentucky from that moment forward.
She seemed to glide through the crowd even though she was moving against the current. Her waifish build and feminine hips provided little for the clumsy frenzy of otter-watchers to bump and jostle. Her left eye was almost entirely closed due to a large patch of scarring covering her eyelid and brow. It was as if, when she was created, God forgot to finish her face, leaving a flat expanse where her brow ridge should have been. As she drew closer I could see that this spot, as well as several other places on her face, was laced with tiny pink ridges like spent confetti. A larger, darker line creased her cheek into a cleft and ran from her depressed brow to her earlobe and down to the corner of her mouth. Here, her lips and the scar ran into each other so that it was impossible to tell where her mouth ended and the scar began. I would later learn that this permanent wicked sneer was a complete betrayal of the woman’s inner character.
We met, introduced, enjoyed the otters in their careless play, and soon after went for coffee downtown. As the hours flew by, the furious pink scars on her face seemed to soften. Her inner beauty shined brightly and radiantly in the quiet way she clasped her hands around her steaming mug, the soft-spoken tone of her voice, even the way she excitedly raised her broken brow when I spoke long-windedly of my travels.
I found myself longing to find out everything there was to know about this woman – not where she grew up or any of that pointless chatter. I wanted to know the thoughts that flitted through her consciousness right before she fell asleep, what came too her mind when she saw the color blue, and why she always bit the nail of her left thumb when someone made her blush. I wanted to enter her mind, settle myself into her very soul. Oh, if only for one minute, if only I could see what gives this woman her gentle ferocity, her irresistible imperviousness, her perfect and everlasting beauty.