See Only Beauty

By Penelope Love

 

First Published in July 2010

 

To those of you who’ve seen me out frolicking bikini-clad on Fort Lauderdale Beach, I’ve also seen you—checking out my legs.

 

Don’t be embarrassed…everyone does.

 

I wish it were because my legs embodied the graceful power of Madonna’s, the seductive radiance of Shakira’s, the statuesque perfection of Raquel Welch’s, or even the luscious length of Uma Thuman’s.

 

Ah, but no—my legs entice people to stare on account of two jumbo scars from the flesh-eating parasites less affectionately known to Spanish-speakers as papalomoyo On my right shin, it’s impossible to miss the dark brown, silver dollar-sized ring encircling the patch of warped and freckled flesh now covering Crime Scene Numero Uno. And on my left ankle, a smaller, evil twin wraps around my Achilles.

 

It seems ridiculous now, but during the painful months when my skin was healing, I woke up every day wishing I’d actually been killed instead of surviving the incessant gnawing of a flagellating protozoan under my skin. That’s just how angry, sad and confused I felt—not only about the open ulcers on my legs, but also everything they symbolized about my life.

 

You see, a person doesn’t receive the kiss of ‘papalomoyo’ just anywhere. Recently, papalomoyo (a.k.a. leishmaniasis) has become more commonly known, by medical professionals, for the havoc it wreaked on numerous soldiers in Desert Storm and throughout later Middle Eastern wars. The transmitter of this parasite is actually a microscopic sand fly. In Costa Rica, it’s the forest-dwelling ones, not beach sand flies, that transmit it. My personal blind date with the exotic creature occurred within the first two months that I’d moved to Costa Rica, where I found myself constantly fighting my decision to move abroad in a sort of inner war of my own.

 

In 2007, I moved to Costa Rica as one of eight friends who risked leaving all the comforts of a cush South Florida lifestyle in order to build an eco-sustainable community on the ridge above Uvita in the Southern Pacific Zone. Armed with the most exquisite piece of land, the Costa Rican Registro’s official documentation (plano, topo, croquis, etc.), plenty of food, clothing, water and shelter, we had a glorious vision of community service-based purpose that still gives me goose bumps to this day.

 

And on the last morning that I felt remotely fine with being there, all I saw was a hundred bug bites on my calves, ankles, feet and toes.

Together the eight of us lived in a less-than-1,000 square-foot outdoor rancho with no walls, smack dab in a tropical rainforest, teeming with snakes, scorpions, jaguars and tarantulas. Needless to say, waking up daily under a mosquito net and surrounded by increasingly grouchy people all creaking around on a decaying wooden floor, I couldn’t see Utopia. And on the last morning that I felt remotely fine with being there, all I saw was a hundred bug bites on my calves, ankles, feet and toes.

 

Even though this event occurred more three-and-a-half years ago and I am back in South Florida again, sometimes I look at these scars and feel it all happened just a moment ago. Sometimes, I gently stroke my fingertip along the scars and thank God that only two of the dozens of bites on my legs that morning became infected. Sometimes, I softly cup my scars in my hands and feel a deep appreciation for the miraculous healing capability of the human body to regenerate flesh where it once had been eaten away.

 

My particular case of papalomoyo was identified two months after it surfaced, because no one had any idea what it was, and so I treated it as a staff infection, like no big deal. It thus required 30 consecutive days of hypodermic injections to kill the bast…buggers lurking beneath the gaping wounds on my swollen lower legs. And sometimes, I marvel at the irony that it was because of something I’d rejected—i.e., institutionalized medicine—that I even have my two amazing legs with which to walk, run, dance along the beach, ride my bike, swim and do yoga today.

 

Nothing like a “shift”—of perspective—to wake us up.

 

So, my body survived the trauma of over 50 injections, the first 25 with a three-inch needle directly into the screaming wounds without anesthesia. One would think that I welcomed the scars over oozing holes of agony in my skin, but in this case, it wasn’t so simple—in contrast to my relatively speedy physical recovery, the psychological and emotional scars were not so quick to heal.

 

Of course, I’d like you all to think I’m some spiritual warrior who is totally over the scars, but it feels better to confess that I sometimes still wake up in the morning where my first impulse is to caress my shin and ankle to see if the scars are really there. They are. And I can’t count how many times I’ve caught myself diving into the shelves at drugstores, squinting to read labels on exorbitant 1 oz. jars of herbal creams, lotions and potions that promise to lighten the scars, if not remove them, with a money back guarantee. In recent months, I have been able to consciously witness my compulsion to hide the scars with long skirts, Band-Aids and outer solutions that could never give me the comfort and self-acceptance I was truly yearning for all along.

 

It is only by grace, God in the form of sheer exhaustion from searching for an outer cure, that I’ve stopped unconsciously scouring the Internet and emptying my wallet in search of some miracle salve. Though sometimes, I still feel compelled to wear long skirts or slacks rather than shorts, when small children point to my scar and ask their parents, “Eww, what’s that?” Or when a man looks at my face, down to my legs, and then suddenly away. But the difference now is that I find myself noticing these things and allowing the emotions to fully be there without instantly scrambling for a way to bury them. Above all, I’ve stared in the face my compulsion to hide a part of myself that I was convinced was ugly and made me unworthy of love.

 

And every time I notice myself noticing, a stillness arises: it is the comforting presence of God within, wherein all is healed and this girl with a broken heart is made whole again. It is the love that I’ve searched for without but is always within.

And every time I notice myself noticing, a stillness arises: it is the comforting presence of God within, wherein all is healed and this girl with a broken heart is made whole again. It is the love that I’ve searched for without but is always within—absolutely, positively and infinitely beyond the flesh and whatever else appears to be so.

 

And through the power of this Presence, I am able to see that even the feelings of shame about my scars are just part of the story about myself I’m no longer desiring to tell, because who needs another burden? To worry whether other people find us beautiful? Since the real burden has been the belief that if they do, then it would somehow make us happier or feel more loveable. And you and I both know—that’s just not the way it is!

 

In such moments of clarity, I gaze at my legs and love my scars like two mute friends. They are always there, constantly reminding me of the opportunity to see only beauty. And how much more full of love life would be if I always remembered that. Because no matter what happens to the body, we are always beautiful.

 

 

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