Tattoo

I do not remember the first tattoo I ever saw. An uncle, a neighbor? I always wanted my skin marked. I longed to at least wear a bubble-gum temporary tattoo, but I was not allowed. I drew on my hidden skin with pens. I do remember the first woman I saw with a tattoo. She worked in a downtown drugstore with a lunch counter. She was in her fifties, with a rose on her forearm. I shyly asked her about it, and she talked willingly. She loved it, she'd always wanted it and never for a moment regretted it. She said it made her feel beautiful in a way that would never go away. I dearly wanted to touch her eloquent skin.

The night I escaped, the ex broke all the mugs I'd collected one by one. Wine glasses from a long lost friend. He broke windows, furniture, everything breakable, save his computer. I wanted nothing around me that could be taken from me, nothing smashable. The idea of a tattoo emerged. Art that could not be removed from me.

Seven years waiting for the right image, the right time, laying it at the back of my mind to germinate. The spark came when I was in a nursing school clinical, when I met a woman with a Camel cigarette tattoo in the ICU with ARDS. I spoke to her on her first day, when she was ill, but talking. I heard her story, I saw her. As she worsened, she was filled with fluids to keep her leaky vascular system from collapsing, much of it leaking out between the cells, tripling her weight, making her unrecognizable. Intubated, she could not communicate. Except for the tattoo. That Camel logo kept her humanity, her story, in the front of my mind when she no longer looked human. She survived to leave the hospital. I expected to mourn her, instead I relish her story.


I pondered for over a year, I was 35, and I found an image of a leaping cat. Chose a spot on my belly, as I had been belly-dancing for about a year. I found a reputable place. I got a fairly young tattooist, the owner was impatient with my dithering, and questioning, said I had to trust them. I sat in the chair, and was told it would be a scratch. I took it all very badly. The pain was so intense, although it went away when the needle went away. Finally, I could not stand more. The outline was done, he convinced me to let him shade it a bit. I was sweating and shaking and trying to breathe and stay calm. As soon as I saw my outlined cat, I loved it. I did everything I needed to to heal it, watched the redness go away, occasionally filled it in with a surgical skin marker. I began to think of it as my ghost cat. And began planning another.


I have four now, all larger, longer sittings, more refulgent lines. Celtic knots, black and bold. I found a better, more experienced tattoo artist, Bones at Southern Thunder, a real artist- a good human being. I would find the pain more bearable after the first one. I took at least a year deciding on the design for each. The last the most readily visible, a cat sitting with his tail wrapped around my calf. Once in a huge standing crowd, a small finger touched the cat, the finger's owner, a toddler stared up at me alarmed. I asked him if he liked my cat, he nodded, withdrew and buried his face in his parents' legs. I wonder what kind of tattoo he will wear. Last week a woman on the street laughed and said it was the most perfect tattoo she had ever seen. Another woman also laughed and said "Mouse, mouse!" And then something in Spanish. We shared a moment of joy, if not understanding.


Nursing involves seeing bodies, and I have seen many, many tattoos. Ugly ones, amateur ones, funny and lovely. Military insignia on old Vets. A woman with a Winnie The Pooh tattoo on her lower abdomen was getting a kidney transplant. She was willing to sacrifice her tattoo for the kidney, but the surgeons took a few minutes at the end to re-attach Pooh's head. I have seen wings and roses, shy small ankle smudges and full sleeves of death's heads and naked cuties. Youthful folly or mature elaboration, simple and tiny to ornate swathes, all speaking profundities of their wearers. As for my stains, I like a kind comment, or an honest question. The only unanswerable is "What does that mean?" If I could have put it into words, I would not have gone through the pain of needling it onto my skin. I am marked, scarred, changed immutably, blessed. It means, but I cannot say how. I am not sure what mine say about me. But there they are.


I am awaiting the time for the next one.



Ask me, if you want to touch.