Inking and Piercing

Back in the fifties my mother ranked tattoos and pierced ears in the same category. “Only gypsies have pierced ears,” she told me, totally ignoring the fact I considered that to be a positive. I had always aspired to be a gypsy but had to wait until I was a lot older to get my ears pierced and buy a teardrop camper, my longed-for interpretation of a gypsy wagon. Now multiple piercings are common for anybody on any body part. My mother probably wouldn’t approve. Things are similar with tattoos. When one of my sisters was nearing seventy, a friend gave her a gift certificate for a tattoo. She’d always wanted one and was delighted. She went off to have a pretty feather inked on her shoulder. Shortly afterwards, she developed a skin problem there. Her dermatologist told her that wasn’t uncommon for people of her light red-headed complexion to experience that when older. She had to have part of the tattoo removed and shrugged it off by saying, “Oh well. Every life has a few broken feathers.” I was a full-time massage therapist for thirty years and saw a lot of tattoos. One woman had her partner’s name inked on the small of her back. The couple broke up and I wondered how she’d deal with that. No problem. A tattoo artist created a beautiful Chinese symbol in that area and no one would’ve known it’d been a name. A young woman whose whole family was very musical had a really large treble clef inked in blue, covering almost her whole back. I don’t know what miscommunication there was but the artist had inked it as a mirror image. I didn’t see her again so I don’t know what she did about that. Some newer tattoos I saw were incredibly beautiful, with vibrant colors.The ones on guys who’d been sailors, gotten slightly inebriated and been inked in some port overseas, not so much. And sometimes I’d see one that I suspect had been lovely when it was new but I’d think…………Hmmm. I wonder what that blur used to be.

Picture courtesy TheDigitalArtist at Pixabay.com