Scuff Marks & Tattoos

 

    I have a low tolerance for gibberish. That’s why I rarely watch the news and never waste time on presidential debates. These forums, dressed as public discourse, feel more like arenas for noise—an endless churn of polished soundbites, evasions, and performance. Amid all this manufactured uproar, I find myself craving something softer, slower—something real.

    I once found it, briefly, in the Christopher Robin movie. That film held a kind of kindness that seemed to breathe, a gentleness I wish existed more freely at street level. There, kindness wasn’t dramatic or performative—it just was. It existed in glances, in pauses, in the way one character waited for another to finish speaking. It reminded me of a truth I feel we’ve somehow misplaced: that decency, like wildflowers, grows best in quiet, uncultivated places.

    But these days, truth seems to have grown wings. It flutters just out of reach, darting between slogans and soundbites, morphing shape depending on who’s holding the mic. Even binoculars—tools once meant for focus—often miss it entirely. The closer we try to look, the more distorted it becomes.

    So instead of chasing headlines, I follow in the footsteps of those who came before me. I study the scuff marks left behind by their choices—sometimes straight, sometimes wayward. These marks become their own kind of language. And just like tattoos, they tell stories whether we want them to or not. People judge us from a distance by these impressions. They see the wear and assume the whole tale. But the truth is more layered.

    I cannot change my stars. I know this. Destiny, circumstance, temperament—some things are fixed. But I’ve learned to look past them. I’ve developed an ability to see what lies beyond the patterns written in the sky. I live in that distance. In the shimmer of heat rising off a lonely road, where outlines blur and form wavers. The distortion may obscure my image, but it does not diminish my desire to understand, to observe, to know.

    Where some see only scuff marks, I see the evidence of lives fully lived. I see well-traveled paths. I see unpaved roads shaped by persistence, not privilege. I see detours taken out of necessity, not failure. And among them, I see the memories of wildflowers—those moments of beauty that grow in spite of, or perhaps because of, the difficulty of the journey.

    We are more than our outlines. We are more than what others can glean from a glance. Truth, though elusive, still exists in unexpected places—beneath silence, inside reflection, or hidden in the quiet kindness of a story that doesn’t shout to be heard.

    

    Zobostic Corwin