Sunday down time

It's Sunday afternoon and my husband is upstairs going through the motions of the knee machine (sigh of relief when leg is lifted and set into the faux wool lining; grimace and teeth-gritting when the knee is bent up). Today he was able to sustain a bend of a hundred degrees.

Yesterday we watched a bit of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which are being held here in St. Paul. "Hey," I asked, "do you want to go out later for a little Bob Costas sighting?" He tried to humor me back. I give him a 9.7 for effort. I thought about his body--our bodies--as I watched the pairs skating and then I wondered what he thought; those Olympic-caliber athletes pushing their bodies through triple lutzes and the most amazing spins and him trying to decide whether or not he can walk with one crutch yet.

The treat for ourselves last night: orders of Steamed Pork Bao (dumplings) with slivered ginger and steamed cabbage, and sesame chicken from Grand Shanghai. Delivered! I took mine with a glass of Summit India Pale Ale. He took his with a side of Percocet and Visteral. We both relaxed some. We watched the rerun of the denim episode on Project Runway and counted the number of times Ricky cried.

Speaking of reality tv . . . I've been thinking about scars and that reminded me about Padma Lakshmi, the host on Top Chef. The scar on her arm has been widely

discussed and plays a part, I think, in her mystique. One can imagine Salman Rushdie writing of it, even after their divorce. And then there's Joaquin Phoenix. That scar on his lip, with him since birth, is sometimes mesmerizing. You know it comes up in casting sessions.

I was examining Ken's long scar and was thinking about how that scar is going to resonate with us long after the staples have been pulled out. We will think about the way we held hands in the holding room at the hospital, we will remember how we covered it with Glad ziplock bags so he could shower. That scar will remind him of the pain and then it will fade away, but from time to time will evoke memory and maybe tenderness. Scars do that for me. The one on my mother's forehead, the one she's ashamed to show--she requests that her hairdresser leave her front curls long so she can pull them over that long scar. She fell out of a car when she was very young and has been covering that now-faded scar some sixty years.

There's the scar across the bridge of my daughter's nose, the scar she got when she was fighting over a heavy Tonka truck with Eric Jon Bredesen at toddler care and he got so frustrated with her he just let go of his end of that tug-of-war. The yellow metal came rushing back at her face and cut her between the eyes. It's small but I still notice it.

My own scars, the ones on my skin, are limited. I have one I got when the surgeon had to lance open a non-recluse brown spider bite on my arm; I had gotten it sometime during the night on a camping trip. My mom noticed all the redness and swelling when I came down a few days later in my sleeveless nightgown and she saw the poison was not only up to my shoulder but had started to come back down towards my heart. Dad rushed me to the flight surgeon at the air base and he lanced that sucker open with the finesse of a sushi chef. And there is the scar from that farm horse who kicked me in the shin (exactly as I had been warned); the scars on the side of my thigh where I fell in high school running the low hurdles, landing with a skid on the old-style track turf, made up of ground-up rocks and rubber; and of course, the scars of childbirth, the ones we're supposed to call our medals of honor.

* * *

I leave Wednesday for a long business trip to Manhattan. I'm trying to organize the house and schedules so that my husband can manage on his own for a few days before my daughter comes over to help. I've got the hockey games listed on the calendar, along with all the notes for next week's "spirit days" at my son's school. I've got quick-make meals in the freezer and a jump on the laundry and bills.

This time I'm not pre-planning a thing for my trip. I'll sit at my publisher's table, mingle, sell the press, and then walk the city on my time off. I'm not planning a side trip to any museums or tourist sites. As my colleague, who just returned from NYC himself, says, the city will be my museum. I've been reading Patricia Hampl and she writes of one of her favorite cities: "[Prague] is a loved city, loved by its residents and by those who visit it. A Western tourist feels quite alone in Prague; it is an exhilarating, surprising sesation. . . . It is a good city for walking; and walking is a good way to feel love."