Scar Tissue: A Birthday Letter on Hope, Love and Everything That Healed by Antionette Kerr
Some of you already know that I am no longer the CEO of Davidson Local.
It’s a bitter sweet release as beautifully complicated demands of running the daily paper has simply outgrown my capacity and I move on to other writing projects. This year I had the opportunity to celebrate 30 years of journalism personally and 5 years of Davidson Local. I plan to focus on longer investigative pieces and podcasting. Along the way, I finally decided to go through a life time of 200 plus poems and release them in a book titled Scar Tissue: A memoir in poetry and prose.
Some of you know that this year I gave myself of goal of getting rid of everything that I didn’t absolute need or have a deep sentimental connection to keep. There's a moment every year when the calendar flips to my birthday and I catch myself doing the same thing: running my softly fingers over old scars — not the kind you can see, but the kind that live underneath, in the pages of the book I've been writing about my own life. I call it Scar Tissue for a reason. Scars aren't wounds anymore.
This year, my birthday doesn't feel like just another candle on a cake or brunch with friends. It feels like a chorus dropping in right on cue — that moment in a song when everything but you've been building toward finally opens up and the volume turns all the way up on joy.
Hope has never been quiet, and hope turned up loud is exactly how this birthday feels. It's never been a whisper in the dark. Hope has always sounded like a horn section kicking in, like a bassline that makes you move before you decide to. Hope was those moments waking up in hospital room to hear the heartbeat still beeping. It's the thing that got me through the chapters of my story I didn't think I'd survive writing, let alone living. And now, on this birthday, hope isn't background noise anymore — it's the headline act.
If you've ever doubted whether better days were coming, let this be your reminder: they were already on their way. They were just waiting for the right cue to walk on stage.
Scar Tissue will be come a trilogy. The first is Love letter that I needed to write to myself is graced with a beautiful tribute from NC Poet Laureate Jacki Shelton Green who penned The River Speaks Thirst. The second is in progress thanks to my patient book coach and award winning poet Barbara Presnell. Her memoir Otherwise, I’m Fine inspired me to keep sharing the tough stories.
Barbara encouraged me to write about my love of music. It’s a Love letter to the musicians who nurtured my thoughts. I have at least one famous collaboration that I am geeking out over. The third will be a Love Letter to God: the Lover and Creator of my soul. I not deeply spiritual but the words bring comfort to others.
Love is the best kind of harmony, and it's the thread that runs through every page of Scar Tissue — not the easy love, but the kind that shows up after the hard stuff, the kind that stays even when the melody gets complicated. It's family. It's friends who became family. It's the people who hummed along with me even when I forgot the words to my own life.
On a birthday, love sounds like everybody singing a different part of the same song and somehow it all comes together in perfect harmony. That's what this day is: a room full of voices, all singing "happy birthday" like it's the biggest hit single of the year.
And then there's the birthday beat drop — the moment it all comes together. So here's to another year, another verse in the story, another scar turned into strength, another reason to turn the music up and dance like nobody's grading your rhythm. Birthdays are proof that time keeps moving, and so do we — healed, hopeful and dancing anyway.
Cue the music. Light the scented candles. Let the broken record play.
Here's to hope that doesn't quit, love that doesn't fade and a birthday that sounds like the best song you've ever heard on repeat.
Stay tuned to learn more about my next venture. Feel free to continue to send your news tips to info@davidsonlocal.com.
