The Blemish

Blemish: n. A flaw, fault, stain or imperfection. Nothing’s perfect. Not even us.

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I found a blemish last Friday morning. It had desecrated my favorite pink linen shirt.

I’m sitting on the porch having coffee. It’s early. The morning’s quiet. Communion with birds and cicadas is a good beginning. I look down and there it is, a black spot next to a white button. Oops, be careful using black and white as adjectives. The Linguistic Police are lurking.

It’s a little stain, nothing to worry about. So I keep on reading, trying to ignore the blight that has besmirched my favorite shirt. But my eyes won’t let it be. It seems to grow larger, larger with each glance until it consumes my entire attention. It’s a call to action, the scourge must be eradicated.

I get a glass of water, dip my finger in it, dab a little on the blemish. Water washes most things clean, sometimes with a little detergent help. Nothing happens. I apply more water, rub a little harder. Nothing. More water, more rubbing. Can it be? The stain is beginning to disappear.

On a roll now. I keep the process going. Water, rub, water, rub. My shirt is soaked but the stain appears to be on the run. Time will tell. As with a lot of blemishes, time washes clean.

What was it, I wonder? Salad dressing? Newsprint? Blueberry drippings from the yogurt? I’ll never know.

And then ‘they’ come. They, the leaf blowers. They blast in with dual blowers. They assault the morning’s solitude with high-frequency audio blemishes.

Round and around they go, blowing every particle of dust from the neighbor’s pool deck. For twenty minutes they circle his pool, blowers screaming. They seem to be hung up in a circular vortex around the miniature pool. I’ve seen baptismal fonts larger than the neighbor’s chlorine puddle. I consider baptizing them in it. Finally, they leave.

The thing about blemishes is they’re everywhere. Like warts on your nose, they delight in finding ways to call attention to your imperfections.

Now take spaghetti and red sauce. They affirm the Law of Attractions, a metaphysical pseudoscience that avers, ‘like attracts like.’ If so, then red and white were either estranged lovers or twins, both restless until they reunite. On your clothes, that is.

Clothes are prime attractions for blemishes. How many times have our sleeves been saturated while dragging a French-fried potato through the ketchup? Or expensive neckties wasted by brown gravy oozing down the middle. Would naked be an option? We’d save on dry cleaning at least.

Mildew is a green curse of all things outdoors. It’s no respecter of pools decks or patio chaises. With a good baptism of Clorox and water the blight will become invisible. Forget orthodoxy…sprinkling or dipping work equally well.

Blemishes do wonders in besmirching our reputations. We open our mouths and out it comes. Gossip, secrets, lies, fake news and such. Our character is tarnished beyond repair. My mother would say, “Son, if you keep talking like that, I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap.”

I remember telling her it was because of daddy’s family, but it didn’t buy forgiveness. I didn’t have brains enough to tell her that it wasn’t the tongue’s fault. After all, the tongue is only the messenger. Our insides are what need a good washing to correct the problem.

Blemishes can also show up because of stupidity. Apply sunscreen. Do we? Sometimes. And then the day comes when the dermatologist carves us up like a pet pig being prepped for bacon. Stupidity is a tough spot to remove.

While water washes most things clean, blood is a toughie to remove. The rule is to soak with cold water as soon as blood stains appear. But there’s no guarantee of success if it dries. Pilate washed his hands quickly but found out later that some blood is a permanent stain.

What’s left to say? Blemishes are everywhere. Always have been, always will be.

And just when I thought I’d escaped, here ‘they’ come again, the leaf blowers. Either the neighbor’s pool deck is filthy, or they forget they’ve been there before. Ten more minutes before the silence returns.

And now back to my pink linen shirt. The linen is dry, the stain is gone. Water works miracles.

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I find then a moral to this episode: Given time and a good washing, most blemishes will disappear.

Maybe there’s something to baptism after all.


Bud Hearn
August 30, 2019