Scars

Now that it is almost summer again you start to look at life differently. There still is a mark on my left leg from my fall into the hold of the Europa earlier this year that isn't hidden by my jeans every day anymore. It's almost three months ago now, but the scar remains, there is a bump and a small scar on my shin. I guess they'll stay as a permanent reminder. I have a few more of those. They've become physical memories.

There is a tiny scar on my forehead which I got when I was really small and I fell onto a milk jug. It's one I don't remember myself, so I must have been tiny.

And I have a couple of small scars on my left hand which I got from falling off my bicycle on Texel. I arrived there one day in the autumn, early in the evening, when a storm was blowing and cycled all the way up to the north, against the advice of the man at the bicycle rental company. It took a couple of hours, against the wind and in the dark, and I fell twice. The second time I hit a car coming out of a driveway, and I got a little damaged. Not sure about the car... The worst thing was that on arriving in De Cocksdorp at half past eight all the restaurants were closing and I ended up at the café having something hot to eat. It's become a favourite ever since, though, so in the end it wasn't too bad.

There should be a small scar behind my right ear from an ear operation I had when I was ten years old, but I've never seen it myself. Apparently it's no longer there anyway. When the surgeon who operated on me way back then examined me again a few years ago he couldn't find a scar and so reached the conclusion he never operated on me. But that is a whole other story.

I guess on the whole it isn't too bad really, considering how often I've managed to hit something, have fallen over or have fallen of my bike. In most cases the wounds heal and don't leave any mark, which is a miracle in itself.