LJ Idol, Week 19: Blanket
Feb. 6th, 2009 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmThere is a tattoo I do not have, and it is of a compass rose.
No great drama about why I don't have it. Time. Money. Impetus. Placement.
I want it, my own true north, on the inside of my right arm, where the skin is soft and pale, and, in another time and place, hidden. But my arm is too small for even the simplest design to show without becoming muddy, even now, even after becoming an athlete.
It's not something I'm particularly tortured about; there are a lot of tattoos I don't have: stylized marks of black leaping rabbits, a fleur di lis.
I don't worry about it. Not really. I have three tattoos. Maybe one day I'll have more, maybe one day I won't.
Tattoos for me are a funny thing. They aren't about art, so much as they are stamps on a passport, or as a friend once joked, the marks the aliens left when they dropped me back off. An inch or two here or there cut away to tell you a story, to hand you a riddle.
Because the stories are hidden. My kokopelli has nothing to do with kokopelli; it is the mark of the shape I make when I sleep, curled on my side, the art of nesting dolls.
The question mark and two exclamation points on my ankle make up, I say, my "what the fuck?!?" tattoo. And it is, but I can't tell you how many people have seen it and asked if it was a particular Crowley reference. Well, it wasn't at the time. But then, things happen in strange order.
My first tattoo was a crop circle design, which I got for fondness and circumstance, but people always mistake for DNA.
My body is covered in lies and evasions.
The compass rose wouldn't really be any different, because while there are a billion pretty ways to say it, at its simplest and most base it would represent my years in the Harry Potter fandom and the way I learned my most desirable qualities were often those I had assumed to be the most unpleasant.
I stitched myself together in those years out of want and solitariness, and I became not just a finer thing, but a sharper one. That's the price I think, when you go on these journeys alone.
But the mark won't fit on my arm and maybe never will. Yet it doesn't stop me thinking about it, doesn't stop me thinking about it like it's mine, like it's a code, like it's a secret, no matter how many times I tell all of you all about it.
There is a woman I know who wants to have a baby. Maybe she will and maybe she won't. Life's like that, and it isn't kind, I've found, to do certitude for anyone but yourself.
Anyway.
One day she'll have a baby, and it will be incumbent upon me to make a grand gesture. It's not important why, it's just how it is, in part because grand gestures are what I do -- I think it's why I always like the anti-heroes with the big flappy coats (and hey, did I ever tell you about the time I took a bus to Texas to go to my girlfriend's wedding? Now that was a grand gesture) -- and in part because this is how you tell a story, even to little strangers you don't yet know.
So I'm going to make a quilt. With a compass rose on it. Even though I'm not a quilter. Even though it won't be for this woman; it'll be for the baby. Because everyone should have a secret true north, a strange riddle, and allusions to the way the flesh is made.
No great drama about why I don't have it. Time. Money. Impetus. Placement.
I want it, my own true north, on the inside of my right arm, where the skin is soft and pale, and, in another time and place, hidden. But my arm is too small for even the simplest design to show without becoming muddy, even now, even after becoming an athlete.
It's not something I'm particularly tortured about; there are a lot of tattoos I don't have: stylized marks of black leaping rabbits, a fleur di lis.
I don't worry about it. Not really. I have three tattoos. Maybe one day I'll have more, maybe one day I won't.
Tattoos for me are a funny thing. They aren't about art, so much as they are stamps on a passport, or as a friend once joked, the marks the aliens left when they dropped me back off. An inch or two here or there cut away to tell you a story, to hand you a riddle.
Because the stories are hidden. My kokopelli has nothing to do with kokopelli; it is the mark of the shape I make when I sleep, curled on my side, the art of nesting dolls.
The question mark and two exclamation points on my ankle make up, I say, my "what the fuck?!?" tattoo. And it is, but I can't tell you how many people have seen it and asked if it was a particular Crowley reference. Well, it wasn't at the time. But then, things happen in strange order.
My first tattoo was a crop circle design, which I got for fondness and circumstance, but people always mistake for DNA.
My body is covered in lies and evasions.
The compass rose wouldn't really be any different, because while there are a billion pretty ways to say it, at its simplest and most base it would represent my years in the Harry Potter fandom and the way I learned my most desirable qualities were often those I had assumed to be the most unpleasant.
I stitched myself together in those years out of want and solitariness, and I became not just a finer thing, but a sharper one. That's the price I think, when you go on these journeys alone.
But the mark won't fit on my arm and maybe never will. Yet it doesn't stop me thinking about it, doesn't stop me thinking about it like it's mine, like it's a code, like it's a secret, no matter how many times I tell all of you all about it.
There is a woman I know who wants to have a baby. Maybe she will and maybe she won't. Life's like that, and it isn't kind, I've found, to do certitude for anyone but yourself.
Anyway.
One day she'll have a baby, and it will be incumbent upon me to make a grand gesture. It's not important why, it's just how it is, in part because grand gestures are what I do -- I think it's why I always like the anti-heroes with the big flappy coats (and hey, did I ever tell you about the time I took a bus to Texas to go to my girlfriend's wedding? Now that was a grand gesture) -- and in part because this is how you tell a story, even to little strangers you don't yet know.
So I'm going to make a quilt. With a compass rose on it. Even though I'm not a quilter. Even though it won't be for this woman; it'll be for the baby. Because everyone should have a secret true north, a strange riddle, and allusions to the way the flesh is made.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 05:43 pm (UTC)So I'm going to make a quilt. With a compass rose on it. Even though I'm not a quilter. Even though it won't be for this woman; it'll be for the baby. Because everyone should have a secret true north, a strange riddle, and allusions to the way the flesh is made.
*nods* Sounds like one of those stories that will be passed down through the generations. Lovely!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 08:05 pm (UTC)This is my favorite line.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 11:27 pm (UTC)Brava!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 11:28 pm (UTC)That's the pure jewel in the middle of the beautiful setting.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 11:52 pm (UTC)Near coincidence
Date: 2009-02-07 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-07 12:27 am (UTC)the way I learned my most desirable qualities were often those I had assumed to be the most unpleasant.
I have been meaning to post an introspective post about what are things that people have said to you that you dislike and what are the positives and negatives about that quality. For example, I used to feel so hurt when people called me Sensitive, but I certainly wouldn't want to be INsensitive. It seems I always have something to say about myself after reading your work and I apologize because I really don't mean to take away from what you've written in any way, but I do very much love your work. It's just incredible to me. You're so very talented.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-07 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-07 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-07 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-07 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 04:02 pm (UTC)The thing about tattoos, I think, is that they're such a strange combination of indelible and mutable. Our culture operates so many symbolic steps away from the actual thingness of things. As someone with tattoos, I'm always kind of intimidated by that. Then again, I could be overthinking it.
Gorgeous entry.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:04 pm (UTC)