Ikiro

A couple of days after Dad died, I found a place in my small hometown that had decent reviews and got a tattoo.

Getting a tattoo is something I never imagined I would do; for years I told myself that I didn't want one because I didn't want to be an 80-year old woman with a blob of colors distorted by my wrinkly skin. But since I suffer from pretty intractable depression, I started thinking that having a daily reminder not to succumb to the lies my brain can tell me might not be a bad idea. 

生きろ -- Ikiro is the command form of the verb live. 

No matter what, 生きろ.

 
Every time I mentioned I was thinking about getting a tattoo, Ren firmly vetoed the idea. In Japan tattoos have traditionally been seen only on criminals or members of the mafia. As a result, tattoos are banned at most onsen hot springs, swimming pools, water parks, and beaches; Ren's resistance made sense. For awhile, I tried using henna to write ikiro on my wrist, but it was hard to be consistent. Plus, my handwriting stinks!  

So two days before Dad's funeral, Mom and I went to the tattoo parlor, and she watched as I got my first tattoo. The plan was to get a very small one that could be easily concealed by my watch when I'm in Japan. The guy botched it though, which I guess shouldn't have been a surprise since I AM from rural southern Indiana. 

Instead of a nice tattoo, I ended up with a mess. My life affirming message became three ugly scars.

 

The first tattoo

Every day I stared at it and obsessed about how horrible the letters looked. When I showed it to a local artist recommended to me by a friend, he was amazed at how much damage someone could do with such a simple design. He told me the only fix was to cover it with another tattoo. Obviously, this is not what someone who wanted a discreet tattoo likes to hear! 

I tried living with it, but my efforts to ignore the misshapen characters and the bumpy illegible handwriting failed. 

Then Falcon came up with a solution. She created a simple design that would at once cover the old tattoo while also amplifying the meaning behind it. The black spots on the koi conceal the scars. The dot in the semicolon is from the original tattoo. 

 

Falcon's design

I never thought I would get one tattoo, and now I’ve gotten TWO! The second one is much more noticeable than I intended when Mom and I went together to the tattoo parlor during those difficult early days. But I’m choosing to look at the bright side. The first tattoo I got in my hometown with my mom. The second one is designed by my kid. The process has been an imperfect journey, but I can't think of a better metaphor for my life!!

 

PS: According to Ren, if our kids want tattoos, it’s my fault, but I’ve told them they have to wait until they’re thirty since none of us know what we’re doing until at least then!

PPS: At this point in our marriage and parenting neither of us are naive enough to think we can control another human.

PPPS: Don’t worry. I bought a wider watch band.