that's why i don't worry about getting tattoos. my body's a temple, sure, but it's also a story. it's my story. it's a permanent moment. i realize there are stigmas in regards to tattoos. i get it, i really do. but i figure if gravity's going to do her thing, i may as well be colourful as i head south.
i'll get two new tattoos when i go home for the holidays, so maybe i should have waited to write this ... but, i needed a story to tell tonight.
shaming of the sun (indigo girls), circa 1999.
forgive the photo, but it's the only one i could find of my first tattoo. this is the only tattoo i've ever chosen off a wall at a tattoo shop, but it still has it's own meaning. it represents the joy of being young enough to get excited about being old enough to finally do something.
it was just around my 19th birthday when an old friend and mine decided to visit my family in the texas hill country. just over the state line into texas we knew that all bets were off. we stopped, got a couple of tattoos and ended up driving to houston instead. easily one of the best trips of my life. we slept in my car in the parking lot of some apartment complex, saw a man get pistol-whipped ... a man i tried to aid with my grandmother's favourite blanket and a bottle of water. we took baths in gas stations, lived well on our meager college wages & listened to the indigo girls' "shaming of the sun" all weekend. we were young and we were free.
on the wings of a dove (ferlin husky), circa 2008
this one if for my grandparents, my lifeblood. my grandparents used to sing me this old southern gospel song "on the wings of a snow-white dove" whenever i'd wake up with bad dreams as a kid. they always knew. they still do. i wrote about that once before, here.
time to pretend (mgmt), circa 2008
at this point in my life i had idea just what the hell i was doing. i was lost. i felt trapped and that i wasn't living life, that it was just whirring around somewhere in the corner of my eyes. i was already regretting all the risks i wasn't taking. it was time to get out of my comfort zone and to truly get to the business of living ... and i did.
hannah (ray lamontagne), circa 2009
it had been a shitty year full of enormous changes that, when they started, i did not think i was equipped to deal with any of it. i was wrong. although for the longest time i felt this brittle hollowness, i saw a lot of life begin to emerge from within. this tattoo always reminds me that there's so much colour and life left to life, even if a thing may seem dead. ray lay says it pretty well below (this song was that year's mantra) and, subsquently, this picture was taken by my then 4-year-old niece, hannah leih.
"i climb the tree with my Hannahlee/my intentions they were pure/oh the breeze did whip and i lost my grip/ and i tumbled towards the earth/where you never would guess who it was that stood below/and his name i would never tell/but his eyes were clear/and his arms were strong/and he caught me as i fell."
ready to start (arcade fire), circa 2010
in case you're wondering, it's on my left rib cage. and it pretty much speaks for itself. i'm rather enjoying the journey these days. with all the changes over the last couple years, the one thing i've come to trust is that i have no idea what tomorrow, next week or next year is going to hold. i'm ok with that.
i gave myself 15 minutes to write this blog. time's up.
1 comments:
beautifully put. thanks.
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