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By Elizabeth B. Krieger

June 3, 1999 | There's hardly a person alive who bears no scars -- someone who has careened through life totally unmarred, as smooth and perfect as a creamy-skinned infant. A corporeal tabula rasa, if you will. Life is hard, even messy sometimes, and although our bodies can usually weather it well, they can also absorb every blow and every slice with little sweet forgiveness. While each experience shapes us and teaches us, life literally wounds us. Looking over my own body, I see a scrapbook of sorts, of mostly wild and vertiginous markings that could narrate most of my life; they could chronicle my personal history. The first scar I remember getting is on the underside of my chin. I grew up in suburban New Jersey. My house sits atop a hill at the end of a very long, curvy driveway. After stopping for the mail at the bottom, from time to time (and perhaps against their better judgment) my parents would allow my brother or me to ride on the roof of the station wagon as they drove the final yards home. One of us would beg to be hoisted above and they'd acquiesce. They knew it thrilled us. When it was my turn, I'd sit in between the bars on the roof like a princess perched atop a gilded chassis and grin as the car seemed to fly up the hill.

But even that excitement could get dull, so one time, when I was about 5, in a moment of pride and stealth, I raised my hands off of the roof rack. I waved to the sky above in a "Look ma! no hands!" pose. Just then, my mother must have given the car a little extra on the accelerator, to crest the final hill. I slipped off -- tumbling in an arc to the ground, a puffy mass of orange parka, of kindergarten wonder. Needless to say, I survived; I merely cut my chin. It barely hurt. I was much more concerned for my mother, who was terribly shaken at what could have happened. From then on, there were no more ersatz roller-coaster rides for my brother or me.

Still, a few stitches sewn, dozens of retellings recited and decades later, I have a pointy, prideful chin that bears a tiny mangled gash. Few people can actually see it; you have to really look closely. As such, I use my punctuated chin as a litmus test of sorts for new boyfriends. If too much pillow-talk goes by without him even noticing, I begin to wonder if he is really looking at me.

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