Perfection and purification. My facial scar is about the sense that my body is full of toxins: pollution that picking and puking will eliminate. When I feel that I have removed some of the ‘dirt’ or ‘oil’, I want to see it. This scar was once a hole through which I wanted to look.
I wanted to dissect the ‘benign facial cyst’ which surfaced on my right cheek when I was thirteen, and which I had removed by a cosmetic surgeon named Dr. Younger. He showed me the mass that he had excised. It was bloody and about the size of a large pea. I had a strong desire to see it cut open, to see what my imperfection was made of. I did not ask to. Instead I left the operating room with my face swollen and bandaged, a young woman one blemish lighter. Before the swelling had disappeared and the bandage removed, I was surprised by my mother’s comment: “Oh, C, it already looks better!” Meant in a generous and loving way, her comment made me very glad to have done the cosmetic operation. It hurt; I felt cleaner.
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