This scar, on my left leg, is what remains from the nasty wound I received on July 13, just over a month ago.

URANUS RETURNS (story): Yesterday’s hysterical “adventure” resulted in bleeding wound.

I spent about three weeks caring for this wound, delicately administering a healing salve and then covering it, twice daily, with time off each day for about an hour of sunlight. Others who saw it were surprised I didn’t go to IU Urgent Care for stitches. But I wanted to do it my way. It’s so damn interesting watching my brilliant body heal itself, how it goes about it. And I knew I would have to take great care, lest the wound become infected. At one point I even snipped off what had shriveled into dead skin.

Anyway, I bring this up here because I realized yesterday that this scar is probably not ever going away. And with this realization, sudden illumination, to wit:

I will designate this scar as my version of a tattoo, except that it’s not something deliberately stamped onto the skin, but what the body did to heal an accidental skin wound. Much more interesting than any tat!

And what fascinates me, is that the shape of this scar reminds me of Lake Baikal, in Siberia. Similarly shaped, long and irregular.

I traveled to Siberia and Mongolia back in 2017 and on that journey, camped for a few days on the shore of Lake Baikal.

While there we participated in an unforgettable shamanic ceremony.

Siberia/Mongolia, 2017

I will carry this scar, this memory map, happily, for as long as I live.