I thought about getting a tattoo. In my 40’s. I changed my mind at the last minute. It was going to be a lynx. Yeah, the puffy jowls that look like Kiev’s. When you brush her hair back, her face is thin and pointy like Chaco’s. But naturally, it’s wider at the edges than it is at the top. All fur. The girl is all ebony fur and bushy tail.
The tattoos, I don’t remember why I changed my mind. Pain. Or the idea that I might have to live with something just a little bit too long. An image, any image, I might get sick of it over time. I could not find inspiration for this practice. I think it’s because I am tired. I went to the History of Tattoos link, the Tattoo You link, too. The most surprising was the one from The Shining, a tattoo of Jack Nicholson peeking through the door he has just chopped to shreds with an ax, spouting, “Here-rr-ee—rrr—ee’ssss, Johnny!”
Then there was the tattoo of the Holy Mother, all across the broad of a woman’s back. That was impressive. No, I didn’t get the lynx. But I still feel close to her mysteries. The full body tattoo is a signature of classic Japanese tattooing. I didn’t know that before. Women as well as men go under the needle. I’ve always thought that women were able to bear more pain. There is childbirth. I’ve never gone through it. And I never will. But the stories I have heard. Big babies, 13 pounds pushing torque through a small contorted opening.
I’m lost in words. In thoughts. I’m tired. The day was full. But not of tattoos. I can’t land on a pinprick to the skin. My mind wanders out to the crow on the branch of an oak. The pre-spring sunset from a lonely distance. The Fed Ex man stepping up to the door at 3pm. The way my back aches at a certain time of the day, way down in the lower back. Hormones. Maybe the position of the Blue Moon.
Pants crawls into a box tattooed with black ink. A Sony Vaio, a turquoise green screen, a game of Mahjong. I was never good at games. I bought a box of tattoo Band-Aids once. I think I still have a couple of them tucked away in a plastic cylinder I carry in my sling pack, along with a short tube of Neosporin. The black panther swirled in curves across the porous plastic – Band-Aid, yeah, I’d stick her on my paper cuts to ease the drone of a corporate day. I tried those little tricks of the trade, to lighten it up for a serious team of data entry processors.
For some, laughter works. Others, well, they don’t want to buy all the guff. Serious is the way they prefer their jobs, their relationships. I got to the part in Main Street where Carol finds out what the townspeople from Gopher Prairie really think about her. They are serious people who would rather talk about milking the cows or the sloshy mud on Main Street, rather than the last time they laughed or had fun. Midwestern blood.
I remember the Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers, the Tattoo You cover. I wasn’t a big Stones fan. The Beatles were more my style. Keith Richards was in a Saturday Night Live sketch last weekend. He was advertising leather bags, was it Louis Vuitton? But the news anchor could not figure out which was the bag. Poor joke, I know. That’s what I’ve stooped to on a late Monday evening, tired, with an aching back. This is what comes out of a tired mind.
I don’t have a tattoo. And I probably never will. I think it takes a certain kind of “guts” that I probably don’t have. I do appreciate a good sketch. What I noticed when I checked out the Tattoo You site, is that some tattoo artists are better than others. More detail and color. Just like real life.
I colored another mandala last weekend, the second in the March series. It relaxed me. Liz has taken to drawing her own, surprising me with the accuracy, proportion, and line detail she is able to draw freeform. I could not draw a straight line if my life depended on it. Thank goodness it never has. Even with a ruler, I am straight-line challenged. I’m more of a curve person.
The last mandala was an early labyrinth. The one before that, a Celtic knot. Even the Celts were big fans of the tattoo. All those strings tied up in dyed knots. The journey is like that. A craftless series of heartfelt decisions. I like to think I have choices. That life is a series of daily decisions: what to say, what not to say, how much to reveal, what to cut, how honest should I be. I have not revealed much in this Writing Practice. Some days that’s what happens. The bear eats you.
Too many words floating serifs to the wind. I like to think of sheets to the wind as my grandmother’s laundry, cool blue summer on a sweaty aqua breeze. But truthfully, I don’t remember my grandmother ever hanging out the laundry. It was Mom, rows and rows in the backyard in Pennsylvania, strung line to line through humid afternoons. The damp end of the day. When fireflies lit up the hill at Hershey. And I in my Mod Squad straight hair, faded bib overalls, sans tattoo, rolled one more time down the lawn with the capital H.
-posted on red Ravine, Monday, March 10th, 2008
-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – TATTOOS
Excellent writing practice exercise. I like how it meandered and yet came back to the prompts at the end.
Tell me, do you do your writing practice on a computer? I know that Goldberg doesn’t seem to care how it’s done, but doing this kind of thing on a keyboard . . . it’s so hard not to edit yourself.
Just wondering . . .
Keep writing!
BT
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tysdaddy, I do my Writing Practices any way I can. I’ve done thousands of Writing Practices since I started in, what was it, 1999 or 2000. I’ve filled up notebooks and computer files. I practice with pen and notebook at the Taos workshops or when I write with other people in person. I practice on the computer when I am by myself and in my online group. I do both. Whatever gets me to the page to Practice. And, nope, no editing. This is what came out last night when I wrote it.
ybonesy and I did make a conscious decision when we started red Ravine to edit spelling and punctuation on our published Writing Practices. And we edit out names when needed to protect people’s anonymity. We feel it maintains the integrity of our blog to do so. We don’t edit our notebook practices or the practices that go out to our online Writing Groups.
Writing Practices were not originally intended to be published. We employ the practice of publishing them because we want to teach and give back to others what Natalie has taught us. That’s how much we believe in the process of writing as a practice.
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This is just a guess…
QuoinMonkey felt a sense of satisfied relief when she posted this practice.
Ybonesy felt a sense of happy excitement.
How’d I do at guessing?
These are both so fabulous, and whether you know it or not, both very revealing.
Yummy stuff ladies.
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QM: the bear didn’t eat you.
Labyrinths are your tattoos. I never made that connection before.
Stunning line: Too many words floating serifs to the wind.
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leslie, am I really that transparent? 8) Ah, no place to hide! I was all excited to do this practice when the Topic came out last week. But when I went to write last night, kind of stuck and tired! I was indeed relieved to get it posted.
sharonimo, I had not made that connection before either. I’m going to ponder that. I like the idea of it. And that it came out in a Writing Practice. Thank you.
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Oh, just totally see through! 🙂
I was a “satisfied” relief.
I just realized that I read both practices top to bottom, and saw them as “one” post.
I think that is why I made a comparison.
I read yours again, QM, and there is definitely a wistfulness about it. A sigh.
But a satisfied one 🙂
I really like what sharonimo said about labyrinths being your tattoos.
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Too many words floating serifs to the wind.
Yes, poetic. And the notion of “sheets to the wind” — I never use it because I don’t understand it. I like your view better.
So many times that I just don’t want to write on the topics. Is it OK to admit that on the blog? It’s especially hard to do the writing practices for the blog. It’s hard to let it go when you know you’re writing something that you intend to publish.
I’m glad you clarifed that, QM, about how writing practices are not intended to be published. There’s an artificiality about doing so. Yet, I do think we can walk the line and find the right balance, as long as every post doesn’t require it.
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Thanks, leslie. I’m quite drawn to the labyrinth. I’d like to walk a few new ones in the coming spring. Maybe even a faithful visit back to the local one I walked last year. I’m always surprised how easy it is to get out of the practice of giving myself silence and space. So much spin in the world. I crave the silent calmness.
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ybonesy, isn’t it strange how expressions become part of our language and we sometimes don’t even know what they mean. I love to look them up. Here’s one explanation of 3 sheets to the wind from Michael Quinion:
The rest of the explanation is kind of colorful and you can read it at World Wide Words (LINK). I never use it correctly in my writing but usually color it toward my own meaning.
BTW, I think it’s more than fine to admit that we don’t want to do the practices sometimes. It’s so much a part of the life of a writer – to not want to sit down at the page, even though we are full of ideas and really want to get working on our projects. The old Guardian at the Gate. You’ve got to love her.
I agree – it is sometimes hard to do a Writing Practice that we know we’re going to publish. We are so used to just letting it go in the private Practices. It’s been quite a journey learning all this, hasn’t it? I learn something new about the creative process every day. I’m glad we are in this together. 8)
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leslie, I remembered this morning, I had wanted to add to your last comment – about reading the two Writing Practices as one post. I sometimes do that, too. It’s fun for me to read ybonesy’s, then read my own, one after the other. Informs the Topic and adds a depth to it.
That’s one thing I like about doing Writing Practices in person – after we write, everyone goes around and reads them, and you get to hear the way all those writers’ minds work. It’s natural to compare, to bounce one person’s take off another’s. You also get to know so much about the person who wrote it. Even if you don’t feel like you’ve revealed very much, you really can’t hide in a Writing Practice.
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Was thinking about- but it was one of those weird thoughts that are all fleeting, and almost fade away when you try to pin it down to solid words- but about how the whole of something is so often revealed in its parts. Like the human body showing up complete in a miniscule strand of DNA. Like fractals: The molecule paterns after the leaf which patterns after the tree. What you said here about what to reveal… I think it’s weird. Those choices we make, individually, as writers, they might control the concrete flow of information back and forth, but the persona seems to be revealed in every word. Whole, in tact, the way a sentence or a thought goes out is irreversibly signatured.
This writing practice was very you in just that way. I really enjoyed it.
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amuirin, I totally get your meaning about the whole and the parts. What a good concept to point out. I remember sitting last year (over a whole year) with a room of Natalie’s students, some I had never met before then. Since it was a silent retreat, we rarely talked and only socialized for short periods of time.
Yet each person revealed themselves to me (and I them) through our Writing Practices. An intimacy developed out of the silence and through the writing – a connection. Sometimes there was conflict, drama, anger, sadness, empathy, frustration, fear. But in the end, most of realized that we are all more alike than different. Humbling.
I also wanted to say, I always enjoy the depth of your comments. Thank you.
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