When I was a
kid, back in the 1950s and 1960s, we were sent out into the summer sun without
a care. At the beach or pool you could almost hear the sizzle of skin frying
and smell the aroma of coconut fried chicken. We were the fried chicken. No
such thing as sun-block back then. In fact what my mom put on us, and what was
sold at the drug store, were products that enhanced the sun rays. In a highly
segregated society where people born with dark skin were treated as second
class citizens, white people smeared Coppertone suntan lotion all over
themselves. Coppertone, so we could make our pasty skin a rich dark brown. I do
remember getting sunburned on a few occasions, but mostly I tanned. I tanned
really well, and people would make jokes about me possibly not being of
Northern European heritage.
This summer
I’m trying to stay out of the sun. Usually I get dry skin during the winter,
but by springtime my skin would bounce right back. Not this year. It might be
from the chemo, but this summer my skin looks like crepe paper. I have finally acquired
the look of somebody my age. Full on gray hair, the wrinkly skin, and bruises.
Yes, bruises like you might have seen on your grandmother if she lived a long
life. Nobody has beat me up, but my arms look like a pear that has been sitting
in the bowl of fruit too long. I don’t even have to bump into anything. Simply
a gentle breeze wafting across my arm and a bruise appears. As for the dry, wrinkly
skin, maybe I should have stayed in Florida. The ninety percent humidity does
wonders for your skin. Plumps it right up, like a raisin in a bran muffin.
