Scar Tissue

I first heard about Miranda July a few years ago when a friend lent me her book "No One Belongs Her More Than You", which is a really great book full of weird, kind of perverse short stories. She's pretty hilarious. The friend who gave me the book also mentioned that she had a website called Learning To Love You More which has a list of about 70 or so art assignments that people do, in order to "guide them through their own experience." It started in 2002, and since then over 8000 people have sent in their projects. I'm totally fascinated with it!

Some examples of assignments are:

#18-Recreate a poster you had as a teenager
#37-write down a recent argument
#39-take a picture of your parents kissing.

I really wish I would've checked out this site sooner. I guess they're not taking submissions anymore, but it's really cool just to look at every ones entries. I think it would be a good idea for me to do some of the more simpler projects from time to time, just to mix things up a little, help me reflect on some stuff. I'll start with an easy one:

#11-Photograph a scar and write about it.





I've got some decent looking scars. There's the one on my chest from when I accidentally stabbed myself with a pair of scissors when I was 7 (I'll tell you that story some other time), I've got some pretty nice burn scars from work (although I wish had some gnarlier ones), and I've got a pretty big chicken pock scar on my stomach. But my oldest and biggest scar is the one on my eyebrow. I've had it as long as I can remember. Not only can I write about it, but I even have a picture taken of me the day it happened, and I look like a demon child!

I don't remember what happened since I was only 3, but I've heard the story a million times. We were in Yosemite in 82 or 83. According to my mom, I was being a malcriada and not listening to her, but my sister says I was running away from her because she was always yelling at me (Mother had quite the temper back then). Either way, I tripped and landed with a giant rock to my giant baby forehead. I look totally demonic in all the pictures!

Now I just have a cute scar there. and that's that.