Freckles

As a child I had always been fascinated by freckles. The discoloration that many befreckled people detested, I wanted more than anything. It seemed that the more striking the freckles, the more attractive a person could potentially be. In grade school there was one girl who was as white as powdered sugar, but who had the deepest brown dots splattered across her face with the most divine inexactness. And she was by far, the cutest girl on the playground, everyday. Sunny or overcast, raining or snowing, she persistently appeared jovial due to her multiple marks of distinction. She complained. Any mention of them and she'd go off on a rant, and I would counter. Like straight haired girls who want curls, and frizzy haired girls who want control over their locks, we fought about birthmarks. And I wanted some.

But I had none. Well, not entirely true--I had none on my face. I had three dots on my body. One was high up on my right thigh, only visible if I was wearing a swimming suit, or if I hiked my shorts up, practically revealing my day of the week underwear to anyone who cared to know that yes, I did have at least one freckle. The other two were in a conspicuous location, symmetrically placed on my right and left hands, near my thin wrists.

I used to spend my bored minutes in class trying to align them, seeing how I might have placed my hands in vivo so that the one birthmark on my left hand, darker in appearance, could have rubbed off on my right hand. The positioning was relatively awkward, almost as if I was in shackles, and I found it hard to believe I would have maintained that position for any long stretch of time, never mind 9 months.

My circular face, devoid at this point from any imperfections, was far less interesting. There was not one spot on my face. Except maybe in my eye. Now and then people show surprise that there is a dark spot to the right of my right pupil. But that was not a freckle in the conventional sense, so I did not care (also my dad had a dot in his eye, and he had, despite the need for glasses, no irregular seeing problems). I was vocally upset to anyone who would listen, that my older sister had gotten what my mom gushed over--a beauty mark. In the perfect location for a beauty mark, on the right side of her face, near the edge of her cheek bone ridge. She could have been a model. I, however, had no distinguishing features except long lanky arms and a bushel full of hair that nobody, not even my own mother, knew how to control.