There is a bruise on my right forearm right where the handle of the pick axe digs in when I swing it down into the dirt. It’s decorated with dainty little scratch marks, framing it like a picture. It hurts when I press it with my fingers, but not when I lift the pick axe up and bring it down again.  

All of my nails came off week one. I got them done the morning I left, short and clear and with stars painted onto my ring fingers. I asked for the toughest gel, so they’d last all month long. They popped off easily, evacuating themselves from my real fingernails like they’d never even been attached in the first place. I tried filing them down to keep them tidy, but not even my gloves can halt the buildup of dirt caked beneath them. I bite at the scraggly ones when no ones looking, and even sometimes when they are.  

I have blisters on the bottoms of my toes, a little bubble on the base of each one. It hurt the first few days, but now they’re all calloused over. Still sensitive when I walk, but I don’t even notice anymore. I think about the legend of Johnny Appleseed and roll my eyes. Barefoot over grass is nothing compared to the friction of my boots and wool socks. 

I reapply sunscreen constantly, partly because I’m scared of burns and partly so my skin looks soft and smooth as long as it can. But my forehead is rough, no matter how much I scrub at it with soap. The sun leathers you out no matter how much you try to stop it. I may be tougher than Johnny Appleseed, but I’m not tougher than the sun. 

I see my classmates change, too.  

We all complain about the way our hair never feels fully clean. It’s always waxy, coated in dirt and sunscreen and sweat and something unfamiliar and mildly alarming. We dunk our heads under the salt of the ocean and let it all clump together. And we put it up when we’re trying to look nice. But we all sort of look nice anyway, skin golden from the sun and eyes happily tired from hard work.  

We reach for Band-Aids less and water more. We watch the planes come in over the ocean and think of how long ago it seems that we were doing the same thing, gliding over the Mediterranean to a place that would give us bruises and blisters and gross hair and broken nails.  

Everything I did before, to prepare for this, feels like another lifetime ago. Maybe the sun has cooked my brain, or maybe it’s just kind of funny the way time works. Either or. 

-Abby