Beyonce and I have a long history.
She’s never met me, but I grew up listening to her music and learning her music video choreography in my living room. I’m the only girl who has ever done this.
Growing up with Beyonce in dance classes, at Bat Mitzvahs, in my iPod shuffle, she was everywhere. She taught me that it’s ok to be beautiful and talented. To be a good dancer and singer at the same time. To have big boobs. She normalized all of this for me.
I saw her live in concert for the third time last night. I saw her in 2013 at the Verizon Center, in 2017 at M&T Bank Stadium, and in 2023 at Metlife Arena. I hope to see her in 2026 at the Doritos Locos Taco Arena and in 2040 aboard our Amazon Space Complex. This isn’t about Beyonce though, she’s just the thought starter for today’s creative writing class. This is about a particular lyric of hers from her newest album.
She has a lyric on her song “Cozy” that goes:
Dancin' in the mirror, kiss my scars because I love what they made
I think she’s referring to scars from a C-section because they made her children. I can’t relate to this line, because my scars haven’t made anything beautiful. Here is a tour of the scars on my body and why I don’t kiss them because I can’t reach.
On my lower left leg I have a scar from the first time I ever shaved my legs. This all started because a girl at camp said my legs were “hairy like a boy’s.” I went home and asked my mom for a razor, put on a bathing suit, and sat on the edge of the tub. On the first try, I dragged the razor in the wrong direction, shaving off a large piece of my skin. The scar remains to this day and reminds me that being “hairy like a boy” isn’t as bad as being “mean like a girl.”
On my lower back I have a scar from my back surgery. I love to call getting a suspicious mole removed “my back surgery” because it makes me laugh and it makes my friends roll their eyes. Skin cancer runs in my family, because a bunch of Polish and Russian people decided it was smart to move closer to the equator. Actually I understand why they wanted to get out of there at that time, nevermind. Anyway, last year I had a “suspicious mole” removed from my back. I got four stitches! The most I’ve ever had. Now there’s a little scar to remind me to always wear sunscreen, and to go to the doctor regularly. And getting stitches reminded me that we’re all only a few DNA sequences away from a Build-A-Bear.
My most recent scar is still in the healing process. It’s from, not sure if I mentioned this, when I fell off my bike in Croatia. The difference between falling off your bike domestically vs. abroad is that when you do it abroad, a man will pull off the road in his Fiat and ask if you need help. Men cannot legally be threatening while stepping out of a Fiat.
I fell off my bike because I was trying to put my sunglasses on with one hand. I thought I could control the bike with one hand on the handlebars and the next thing I knew, I flew over the handlebars and landed on my right side. I had huge bruises on my right thigh, shoulder, and knee, but a huge cut on my right forearm. This is the first scar I’ve ever gotten from a sport. It makes me feel like I won Wimbledon. It makes me feel like I have low cholesterol. This scar reminds me that I can do hard things, like fall off an E-bike in Turbo mode, scrape the visible dirt out of my arm, and then get back up and finish the ride. It reminds me that I can ask a strange man to help me lift my heavy bike over the railing so it’s not in the middle of the road. My scar reminds me that even beautiful people can fall down.
It seems my scars have made beautiful things. They exist as a reminder that what doesn’t kill you makes you more interesting at a dinner party. A neutral reminder that we are fragile, we can be cut open and stitched back together, and we can shave in the wrong direction. We can fall down, and we can get up. Scars fade over time if you take care of them, if you remember to put on the vaseline every night and keep them out of the sun. Scars fade eventually, when you’re not looking.
Last night, we all showed up to practice Beyonce choreo in our East Rutherford living room. On my way out of the stadium, I tripped and the platform of my right boot fell off. I leaned against my friend Hailey’s shoulder to reattach the sole and stomp it back in place. I didn’t fall all the way down, but it would have been okay if I did. I’d have a beautiful scar to remind me to stop buying pleather boots on the street.
LUV!