Ink: Wearing Your Heart On a Sleeve

I've been mulling over tattoo ideas for several years now.  I began to contemplate them while working at a clinic in Illinois, discussing them with tattooed patients, both their designs, and a well-reputed parlor in town.  By this time a design had come to me which described, I felt, my sense of my vocation, and I had begun to sketch it, knowing that one should sit with an idea for something so permanent for awhile.  I wanted to wear it on my left forearm, where I could see it, as for instance, when playing the violin, but also cover it up.  It would be a tree, with roots in proportion to branches.  In the branches would be hearts, like leaves or fruit.  And also through the roots would wend hearts.  To me, it was a recognition, that I had received love from others, through my roots, in the way that a tree does, that that love had nourished me, and that it had born fruit, which I could now share with others.  Recently, a favorite band, The Giving Tree Band, came out with a song Live Love, Give Love that rather embodies this sentiment.  

My second idea for a tattoo came to me through one of my poems, a line of which is, "stroke through eternity--mermaid of the skies."  This image of being at home both in the air and at sea has stayed with me, of living between two worlds.  There is a line in the movie Ever After, where the Danielle character says to Leonardo da Vinci, who serves as a sort of fairy godmother in the 1998 adaptation:  "A bird may love a fish, Signore, but where would they live?," to which he responds, "Then I shall have to make you wings."  And one of the most beautiful instances of cinematic costuming ensues.  I have always felt that I had the power of both flight, and aquatic movement.  Now for anyone who's ever been a rather serious swimmer, as I was somewhat in high school, of the sprinter variety, you'll know that when you swim quite fast, the water falls away to the side, as with a speed boat, skimming over the water, and it feels almost as if you are flying over the surface.  I found that I was not the only person to have conceived of the winged mermaid.  James Deering did a sculpture on a stone barge at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, on the Miami Coast, in 1916.  The mermaid's features are classical. She leans over, as though carrying Atlas's burden on her back.  She seems to feel a certain responsibility in her duality.  I've thought about wrapping her tail down my arm.

I saw a friend's tattoo recently.  He had the state tree of Texas, with his grandparents' names.  I know

that honoring my roots, as with my tree above, is important to me as well.  Family history is also important to me.  I've been reading Steven Ozment's A Mighty Fortress:  A New History of the German People, to try to understand why they immigrated.  They came at different times, and from different places:  Oldenburg, before and after the revolution, Prussia, Alsace-Lorraine, by way of the Austrian Empire, Switzerland, and Hungary, while it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  I've thought about making a coat-of-arms out of the flags at the time of their immigration:  the bright yellows and oranges of the 18th-century Oldenburg flag, the Prussian eagle, etc.  Something to remember the homelands they left.  I still have a lot to learn about the "why's" of their coming, though.

I have other ideas I'm still working through.  I've long identified with dryads and nymphs, for various reasons.  Long felt an affinity for trees, as above, and an affinity for water, as above.  I was reading through my The Secret Language of Flowers, by Samantha Gray, this morning and read the myths surrounding the Anemone.  One particularly evocative myth was that Anemone was a nymph, who loved both the god of the spring wind and the west wind, but the jealous Queen of flowers turned her into a flower.  Still the wind, her lover, finds her, though.  The petals of the Anemone nemorosa, also known as a windflower, close at night.  It is said that fairies sleep within the petals of the Anemone flower.  I had thought perhaps about doing a little Tinkerbell tie-in, perhaps just one stray, dainty foot, for once upon a time I was a Tinkerbell, who loved a Peter Pan, but alas, he grew up, as Peter Pans always do.

Tattoos used to be the exclusive stuff of sailors, the Maori, prisoners.  But I believe it's becoming a folk art with broader appeal.  And for those in professions which still frown on the permanent embellishment of skin, there is always selecting sites which can easily be covered with clothing.  Every tattoo tells a story, a story about what's important to you.  I love asking people about their tattoos.  Consider tattooing what's important to you.