yesterday, a cold'n'drizzly New York day, seemed as good a one as any to move on something i'd been thinking about doing for awhile: altering two little letters on the crown/heart tattoo i have on my left wrist. But due to my proclivity for overthinking, combined with a lack of loose change, i'd been for a long while only pondering this move.
I'd been thinking about what the letters on my arm had represented, remembering when he and i decided to get matching tattoos with each other's initials carved into the crown. How somehow i'd equated the marking of our body as a sign of emotional shelter and also an artful ownership of sorts. But sometimes ink is only ink. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but what exists in the soul's eye is even more powerful, and, for me, the action opened me up to the possibilities of a relationship: the wonder, the safety, the trust, the journey and the love. That it didn't last, or even exist as I'd thought it did (or would) doesn't actually matter. It unfolded exactly as it needed to.
I'd always liked the idea that a tattoo marks a specific event in life and, although at one point I may have had the intention of becoming my own visual biography, a cross between Inky and Angelina, I had gotten only one other marking in my life after my first interview for SPIN with the band Primus. I was in their hometown of San Francisco and I had spent the day fishing with them in the harbor. I had been trying to be cool, though i was crazy nervous and after getting a pretty steady stream of monosyllabic answers to my no-doubt standard issue questions, i decided to focus on trying to catch a fish. But also, because i'd had some libations to quell my nerves, I had to go to the bathroom really really really badly, and given that we were on a small powerboat, there was no below-deck loo option available. when I made the suggestion of heading back to shore so i could use the facilities, Les Claypool, the singer with the crazy-squeaky voice, said "Bucket." Uh, come again? "Bucket," he repeated, pointing to the white container that had held the bait, but was now empty. Um, you want me to use the bucket as a toilet right here in front of y'all? Yes, apparently that was the idea. I thought it might be some sort of hazing set-up and i chose to exercise all my kegel muscles to withstand the, er, need.
Anyway, when we got back to shore (and after I'd definitely not used the bucket), Les decided we should all go get tattoos together. Hell, yeah, I thought. He decided to have a larger-than-life mosquito tatooed on his bald skull, i decided to have a parrot fish the size of a dime etched onto my upper arm. Go figure who was the boldest of the two? Mine took 10 minutes. (Though on the random-fact-about-my-tattoo side: the color used was an ink that glowed under black light, so i spent many a moment back in NYC dragging people into the black-lit bathroom at a place called the Sidewalk cafe, which annoyed many many people who wanted to actually use the bathroom for the purpose intended. Latent apologies for that. Also for some reason, I didn't worry at the time that i might someday get some weird blood ailment from this type of ink, but that too has passed, and now I barely remember that the fishy lives there, until someone occasionally asks me if i'm a Pisces or born again [no to both]).
So, although my intention back then was to mark all kinds of occassions with some body art of some sort, it was a fleeting thought, and a decade had passed before he and i were running in LA and the topic of our matching moments came up. (I should also mention that a couple of minutes after we decided to do this, my feet got tangled in one of those plastic bindings they use for bulk newspapers and the like and I literally went flying forward through the air, landing on the sidewalk on my knees, skinning a few things bloody and raw. hmmm. maybe a sign to slow it all down. but, no, in true me-fashion, i got up and pretended all was right with the world and went on with planning more bloodletting.) Here's what I learned about myself that day we got tattooed: I talk like a mutha-fucka when i'm in pain/nervous/scared. i mean, i really go non-stop about anything and everything. "Look, a tree outside the window. Now isn't that funny. Wonder what kind it is? Hey look, a car just drove by..." You get the idea. I've no memory of what I said to mr. tattoo-inscriber, but i'm sure his eyes glazed over within the first couple of minutes. and the more the needle stung, the more i prattled on and on. And at the time, I had no thoughts of what this might mean in the long run. Right now, this was commitment and i'd never done that before in such a permanent-marking kind of way. It was exciting and it was lasting. Until it wasn't, and then i knew it had served its purpose.
And here today, walking down one of my favorite stretches of this island of fantasies. The block that features the studio on one side and on the other, the Chelsea Hotel, where Patti Smith, Janis Joplin, Nancy Spungeon and Viva had rendered their own storied moments, i knew that I needed to walk into the tattoo parlor next door to the hotel and just do it. And so I did. I went in letting go of all the expectations i'd had about trying to come up with something to replace these two little letters. I'd gotten hung up that i'd need to apply something profound. A symbol or word or glyph that would tell the story of growth and strength. But as i stood in the neon-dragoned doorway, I looked across the street and realized that so much my growth has happened in a place of movement beyond the valley of words, i decided to stop pondering and just act. i can certainly be impetuous, but that often has to do with holding someone else's attention or interest. when it comes to sliding into something for only me, I'm sometimes stymied. But not this time. I passed through the door, followed tattoo-guy into the back, sat down in the chair and suddenly remembered, This is probably going to hurt like hell. And I decided to do something different (no, i didn't take a valium...i don't even think they make those any more), i decided not to talk. To instead pay attention. I would only speak if I needed to tell someone that i was going to faint. But that seemed unlikely. so I sat there and stared at a poster of a big, fat buddah on the wall as the sound of the whirring needle and the pinpricks filled with ink covered what had been there minutes before, but what will remain in one way or another forever. And i let myself feel it. It felt like shit. It felt like heaven. It felt like life. Bravo for that.
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about this title: "de plane, de plane." (some of you may remember it...)
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