The Skin I’m In
Like ripening raspberries, red welts raised their fiery heads on my skin. I was at war and my skin was the enemy. I was very young, but I remember holding my limp arms in front of my father and pleading with him to make the pain go away. It seemed he was the only one who knew the cure. Gently, he held my wrist in one hand and with the other ran curly-cues of touch along the bumps. He blew soft, cool breath up and down my arms. The burning immediately subsided. “I’m sorry you have to go through this,” he said. “You inherited your skin from me.” I looked down at the deep olive skin of his hands next to the moon-like and freckled lightness of mine and wondered what he meant. Then I noticed the dry circles between his fingers. They looked like cracked snail shells curling in on themselves. With one slight trigger, those patches would rage, just like mine. “It will get better as you age,” he said comfortingly, “You’ll learn what your skin needs. Mine was once like yours.”
His childhood memories must have been like mine. The most vivid ones revolve around my skin and come to my mind like flickering flashbacks in a dim theater. It was always so surprising when I woke to find my legs and feet bleeding from scratching them so deeply in my sleep. One morning, I slid out of bed and put my weight on the floor. I collapsed from the pain. There were so many dry splits on my feet that I had to crawl to the kitchen for breakfast. I can still hear the taunts of “Crocodile Skin! Crocodile Skin!” being hurled at me across the playground as the kids ran away. “Don’t let her touch you! You’ll get her disease!” I also remember a family reunion where my aunties threw an embarrassed and naked me in a cool bathtub and scrubbed with large bars of Ivory soap, trying to calm the skin eruptions that came from a short horse ride. That was one in a long series of different anti-itch bath concoctions of oatmeal, ice, baby oil, milk, and anything from the medicine cupboard that might work. Canning season produced an unbearable dread in me. I peeled peach after peach while the juice dribbled through my fingers and burned them like they were roasting on a spit. Even an outing to swim in the Great Salt Lake, which should have been enjoyable, brought deep anguish for me. While my brother and sister bobbed and floated in the water, their voices laughing and calling to one another, I waded to where the saltwater touched just above my skinny knees. There I would stand, still and poised as a seagull, and sob. “Stay there!” my parents would yell from their perch on the beach, “The salt is healing your skin!” I would tremble and force myself to be calm, repeating in my mind that I was healing, healing, healing. All my skin felt was fury.
As I aged, I sometimes brought the fury on myself. At the end of the day, I slowly peeled down my thick cotton socks to my ankles. Then I yanked them off as hard as I could so the cotton would rip out of the splits on the bottom of my feet. Quite meticulously, sometimes with a pin, I scraped out the remaining threads caught in the wounds. I lotioned down my legs and then buried my face into the pillow, clenching down the scream while the pain grew taut like a ship’s sail pressing against the wind. “Make it go away!” I prayed. In those red hot moments, my skin and I had to come to terms with one another. I knew that in each moment my skin was reinventing itself—new skin cells came to the surface while the old cells sloughed off, falling like miniscule coins onto the floor. If I allowed the good skin to come to the top without damaging it, then slowly—layer by layer—I would mend. But how?
I considered cleansing the inner vessel and how changing my behavior might heal the outer vessel. I questioned my skin’s temper tantrums and studied its needs. I avoided the triggers, like allergens and stress, which set it off. I took better and more consistent care of it. I became disciplined. I prayed for help. In the process, I developed a thicker skin (so to speak) and a very calm personality. “Everyone has different skin. This is the skin God gave you. In fact, you probably chose this trial. So, learn from it,” I would think, though enviously admiring the tanned legs of the girls slinking across the high school campus. Unlike them, I couldn’t go in the sun without regretting it the same night. When I did have flare ups because of poor choices, I would ask my understanding father for relief. He was always there to soothe me through the worst episodes.
Reinventing skin is a long process. I had a lot to learn. Even though I tried to take care of my skin, I hadn’t anticipated the worst complication of all—boys.
“What’s wrong with your skin?” my first date asked when he reached out to hold my hand. I quickly pulled it away from him and slipped it under my seated legs. “My skin doesn’t produce enough oils,” I said, trying to sound scientific, “and I’m allergic to my own perspiration.” Needless to say, he didn’t try to hold my hand again. After kissing a boy, the skin on my face would bluster up like a glowing Chinese lantern. Rather than gazing at me romantically, his eyes always looked stunned at what a little kissing could do. Even worse, my parents always knew what I had been doing. I sunk further into my skin and my shame. Could someone ever love me like this? I conjured up wild rationalizations about my skin to avoid the hurt. I dreamed of it being a mark of a wise woman who could do magic with her wrinkled hands. I was one of the privileged. My skin showed the depth and age of my soul. One day, the right man would see the inner me by looking at my skin. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t react to his saliva either.
I consider it a miracle when that day finally came. “Why do you sit on your hands?” he asked on one of our early dates. I stammered a weak answer as he pried my hand out from under my leg and held it in his. We drove in silence. Doesn’t he feel my skin? Isn’t he repulsed? Why is he still holding on? I wondered. But he held on tight and when he kissed me madly that night, my skin had no reaction. Is this a sign? I wondered as my soul held its breath. We bravely dated on. Then, a strange thing occurred. The more he stroked my skin and kissed my face, the softer they became. Weeks would pass without pain. I rarely had flare ups. The weeks turned into months. I was feeling good in my skin. People began to notice. “Your look better!” some daringly exclaimed or “Your hands are softer.” On the day my hair was being set for my wedding, my hairdresser announced, “You have beautiful skin!” I smiled meekly at these praises and wondered over the secret antidote. It wasn’t a prescription cream, a homemade oatmeal paste, or an ice-cold bath. It was love. Cell by cell, love reinvented my skin. From my childhood memories, I should have known the answer when my father glided his fingers up and down my arms, whispering comfort from all the pain, tracing trails of relief, and soothing the sting with his breath. He knew what worked. After all, I inherited my skin from him.
Melonie Cannon recently moved to Utah with her four children and wonderful husband, James Uhl. She is enjoying the mountains and the cultural quirks! She has an M.Ed and is gratefully using it to teach her own kids about the wonderful world of words.
