2-33: Marks That Remain

Imperfection and What It Records

I’m on the treadmill and I look up to see Christmas lights wrapped elegantly around palm trees on the pool deck. On the second tree to the right, there were three bulbs that were blinking. These were the only bulbs out of the several hundred that were blinking. For a while, I thought how out of place they looked, how there was clearly something wrong with them, and maybe they just needed a new bulb in order to stop blinking. Then I thought how it’s actually kind of nice that they’re the only ones blinking. They certainly caught my attention and made me think. Had these lights not blinked, I may not have noticed any lights at all. What first registered as a flaw slowly revealed itself as the sole reason I noticed anything at all.

My Dad’s old Camaro popped up on bring-a-trailer and one of the photos points out a few imperfections in the paint, while acknowledging that the paint was applied during a frame-off restoration in 2008. I vividly recall racing up the driveway after getting off the school bus to find a ceiling-to-floor paint booth set up in the garage, and my Dad in an astronaut-looking paint suit painting his car. It was seriously cool and any paint imperfections simply enhance the story behind the paint.

Some imperfections outlast time. I have a small, yet noticeable scar on my cheek, unintentionally self-inflicted from my safety razor during a hurried morning shaving my face. If you didn’t know, you’d think it were a small birth mark. To me, it’s a permanent reminder to slow down and allow for a few extra minutes in the morning. The scar doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It taught me something and it is not going anywhere.

Imperfections are records in time, whether we are born with them or whether they are byproducts of us living fully. They exist because effort was applied, time passed, or attention slipped. A classic car’s odometer with delivery miles still on it has no story to tell. It has had no contact with reality. Whether its your pair of blue jeans with its own unique creases, a leather notebook with a certain patina, or a grandparents wrinkled hands, every line tells a story. No matter the reason, they mark moments when life left a mark.

Some imperfections are earned while others are caused and there is a difference between those we inherit and those we accumulate. Inherited imperfections sometimes shape how we develop early on, often before we understand them. Lived imperfections arrive later, usually following a choice or a shortcut. A scar from rushing one morning or an imperfect paint job. Whatever the imperfection, there is a story to be told from it and something to learn from it.

Imperfection does not forget easily. It shows where your attention drifted, where your effort showed up, and where time pressed hard enough to leave something behind. The next time you notice what you think is a flaw, look again and it may surprise you.