Bruises

I woke up this morning with an invisible bruise on my leg. You know the kind, where it feels sore like a bruise, but when you look at it, it doesn’t look any different than the rest of your skin?

I have no idea what I hit it against, of course, but I’m sure there was something. I’ve found that tends to be the case. Really bang something, so it hurts like the dickens for a few minutes, nothing comes up. A light bump that you don’t even remember a couple minutes later, bruise.

Of course that’s not always the case. I remember one time, several years ago, I was on a canoe trip with our singles class. It had been a few years since I had been on a canoe trip, and I’d forgotten how to get into a floating canoe. The way you’re supposed to get into it is, put one foot into the canoe to steady it, but don’t put any weight on it, then sit down on the seat, and pull the other leg in after you. But like I said, I had forgotten that, so I put the one foot into the canoe, and tried to stand on it. Of course, the canoe rocked, and I fell. Most of me fell outside the canoe, but the one leg was inside the canoe, and hit the edge of it behind the knee.

It hurt a lot, but only for a minute or so. Over the course of the couple of days we were on the trip, it turned into a most lovely deep purple bruise. Seriously. And that bruise was clearly visible for the rest of the summer, fading to yellow-brown after a week or so. But even after it faded away to invisibility, I could see the outline of where that bruise had been, and feel a difference in texture in the underlying tissue. If I remember correctly, it was a full year before it totally went away, and I couldn’t feel the difference any more.

I’m glad that I haven’t had any other bruises that bad since.