Rewards of slow playing life

Last week I set out to accept my first and second tattoos. I wanted to get one by my fortieth birthday and it has only past by one month and a day, so I’m counting it. I attempted to get one on my actual birthday, but the artist I spoke with said she didn’t think my idea would work the way I wanted. Having never been tattooed at all I didn’t want to start with a gamble, so I needed to rethink. I remembered some art my son had made that I had tucked into a the edges of a picture frame on my wall just next to my bed. The way an old person might do. I used to make fun of my grandmother and mother-in-law for this very same thing. And now I’m there, in that once unimaginable moment.

I am an emailer on the scale of socially anxious communication, so I first emailed the tattoo shop at 9am on a Tuesday morning. A friend (VIP reader, in fact) recommended I make an appointment, so that was step number one. I sent along all my information with photos of the art and said I would like to book an appointment for that evening if possible. Just after noon, they emailed back—call and make a deposit and I can come in tonight. So I did.

The storm was pretty bad and the shop was located in Fells Point, a notoriously low-lying part of the city. I drove through an intersection with standing water and briefly thought why am I doing this? But the tides of fate turn too quickly, so I pressed on with my mission. Once I reached the old cobblestones it was only rain and wind to contend with. No waves. I parked across the street, fed the meter for the rest of the night, and ran through the down pour into Saints and Sinners.

Right off the bat I made a terrible joke about the rain. But it was really raining. He invited me to hang my wet coat on the chair as he checked my ID for age, I guess? I was introduced to Dave, who would be tattooing me. He had already printed the illustrations that would become my tattoos. They were about twice the size I had in my mind and so we talked briefly about how to handle the smaller details if we were going to reduce the size by half. Dave headed upstairs alone to draw them again with the changes. I sat and looked at least one thousand tattoo ideas and if you asked me now to describe one, I don’t think I could. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with identical picture frames each containing at least five designs. It was overwhelming. There was another person in the waiting room. I guessed he was waiting for a friend, and I was right. Just after the man and his friend left, Dave called for me to “come on up.”  

I wish I could tell you that I felt the enormity of the moment as I walked up the stairs toward the buzzing of tattoo guns, but I didn’t really. I felt like I was having a medical procedure done. Dave asked me where I wanted them, and I showed him. We had a brief discussion about which way is the right way around and in the end, I took his expert advice.  

The art now tattooed to my forearms is from a game deck my youngest was working on (think Pokémon cards). He drew various characters on the back of lined index cards. The game design wasn’t panning out and he announced that he was shutting the project down and I could pick up the cards and throw them away. I had him pick them up and hand them to me, so I could reuse the reverse side to jot notes for work.

I had been working my way through the stack for a few months and taking a look at each character that he had created as I used them. Some were easier to decipher than others but I enjoyed his styling and the creative names. They were a high point of the work day. Some days I can really feel like an animated skeleton if you know what I mean? On one particular day I was rattling bones and I turn this card:

Through consistent therapy, I have learned that when I feel like bones, I am protecting myself from pain and I should sit and listen to what it is I need protection from. A helpful message reinforced by my child’s drawing, celebrating the shielded skeleton as strength. I can’t see that as anything but a sign from the universe.     

I felt like fate had given me a nudge in the right direction, get the tattoos now or potentially die never having done anything you might regret. A heavy storm cancelled an after-school event and suddenly I had a free Tuesday evening. Amor Fati. Now or never.