Scraped Knees, Rumpled Shirts

“I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises—they’re like little flowers. I’ve always said that if you have a name for something, like ‘cut’ or ‘bruise’, people will automatically be disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing in nature, and you don’t know what it is, it can be very beautiful”.

-David Lynch

Life is an adventure, and collecting imperfections along the way is a privilege. It would, I believe, behoove us to think about this more often. On the days that we feel the world is dragging us forward despite our protestation, we come to crave the unremarkable. We want unblemished skin, ironed clothes, and pristine houses. Amidst the unpredictability, we long to appear untouched.

Isn’t it interesting that we can in the same day smile at the beauty of a baby’s crinkly-eyed laugh and agonize over our crow’s feet in the mirror? When we see a child with scraped knees and paint on their shirt we think of how lovely and right it is that they are discovering the world. Yet, when we show any sign of perspiration or rumpling, we rush to pull ourselves together. God-forbid we let it show that life can be messy.

When I first read this quote from director David Lynch, it struck me deeply. Mistakes, accidents, imperfections—these all seem to be words that we rush to direct toward ourselves. Yet, as Lynch says, “when you see the same thing in nature, and you don’t know what it is, it can be very beautiful”. The more rings a tree has, the more it has endured, and we admire its fortitude. The missing limbs on a Roman statue only make it more enthralling, and we stop to wonder what it has seen throughout the centuries. A flower poking up through the cracks in the street causes us not to criticize the pavement, but to admire nature’s tenacity.

And so, I hope that we notice the signs of wear on our bodies, minds, and hearts, and remember that we are alive. Remember that we are beings in motion. Remember that it is a privilege to change and to age. At the end of the day, we are not “slick and pretty things”, are we? We are human, and our blemishes tell our stories along the way.