My shins are slightly bumpy and when I get a tan, mottled with tiny white dots as with sunlight through leaves. The dots are faded scars, dozens of them of different vintages, criss-crossed and overlaid. The newest is a slight hollow on my left leg, got when I slid down a bit of the Rocky Mountains three years ago. When I was little I acquired them more often.		Over and over I ran full-tilt into my bedroom and threw myself onto my bed, banging my shins on the metal frame, hidden under the bright coverlet. I took a breath in the pause before the pain hit. Then rolled on my side, squeezing the long bone, waiting for the great steel-grey vane of agony to soften, warm, and melt away. In summer my brown legs were interrupted by transverse streaks of white at bed-level.