Tats

About a year ago I was in Asheville for my little brother’s birthday. To celebrate the day, his wife gave him one of the cooler presents I’ve seen: she got him tattooed.

Apparently, years ago Matt came up with an idea for a tattoo — a series of marks at one inch intervals from wrist to bicep, and equidistant to each of pair of those marks, a smaller mark.

My brother is an avid fisherman and the marks are positioned relative to the tips of his fingers so whenever he makes a catch, he just lays it down his arm and knows exactly how long it is.

While waiting on Matt, I spent about an hour sitting in the lobby of the tattoo parlor chatting with the folks looking to get their bodies decorated. I’d always thought of tattooing in terms of tribal bands and tramps stamps — as a way to fit in and try to be cool. After talking to a half dozen people, I started to see tattooing for the personal art it most frequently is.

It was on that night I decided to get a tattoo, but it has taken me a couple years to figure out what I want.

I figured out a while ago if I ever launch the bar, I’m going to get a tattoo of a swan in the form of a yin-yang to combine the concepts of the black swan and the illusion of understanding.

In the shorter term, though, I’ve been thinking about something for my left wrist. Unlike my brother, nothing pragmatic comes to mind and I’m a bit too dynamic to assume I’m going maintain an interest in any particular thing for twenty years. If there were one thing I would most like to be reminded of, it is Castaneda’s advice on remembering death.

For a while I considered either the appearance of my wrist bones or maybe a bony hand around my wrist, but both of those seem a bit too morbid and serious. The whole point of remembering the immanence of death is to not be too serious about things since I never know when my part in this play will come to an end.

I have recently had a new idea: “namaste” in Sanskrit:

Namaste is a traditional greeting in Hinduism and Buddhism. The translation like best at this point in my life is, “the light in me recognizes and respects the light in you.” The simple and miraculous fact of existence is something I have trouble holding on to. I get caught up in worrying about the future, and forget I am alive and free, and everyone around me is as well. A regular reminder of that would do me good.

The only problem is, I don’t really want a word. I really want some meaningful piece of art. What that art might be still eludes me.