Tattoos

I'm going to get a new tattoo in a couple of weeks and I am feeling conflicted as to where to put it. The design has not been a problem. I know what it is I want to have, but the where on my body is still under consideration. At the time I made my appointment, nearly four months ago, I figured I had plenty of time to come up with the 'where' but now that there are only days left before The Deed is Done I'm starting to worry I will find the right place.

My concern with tattoos probably started in childhood when tattooed bikers would come to our resort and be turned away by my grandfather. "Those Types" of people weren't welcomed in our family-style resort. Tattoos weren't a big problem in my childhood: fact is, there just weren't a lot of people who had them. Sometimes an uncle might sport a Marine emblem on a forearm and that was tacitly accepted. Anything else was mightily suspect.

So I guess I carried this Taboo Tattoo feature into adulthood. It never really bothered me too much. I didn't know that many folks who were tattooed and that was fine with me. My husband got his first ones around age forty when we began scuba diving. He got an angel fish on one arm and a dolphin on the other. They were smallish and didn't bother me too much. They only showed when he wore a tank top or swim trunks and that was usually when we were on a dive trip. It appeared that most divers had some sort of tattoos and sometimes at the end of a successful trip, the divers would show them off to each other.

Things changed when we got into Harleys. There, it seemed, everybody had a tattoo. We got to be close friends with Tom in the winter when he wore long sleeves and by spring it became apparent that his arms were gradually becoming full of tattoos. At first, I pretended not to notice his colorful pictures beginning to wind up his arms, but soon I was fascinated by each new picture he added each month. On a ride, complete strangers would walk up to him and admire his arms. It was a conversation opener and never failed to impress. Occasionally, we'd find somebody whose eyes would slide away from us as soon as they spied the tattoos. Yes, judgement was still out there. There was still some sort of 'stigma' attached to tattoos.

A couple of years after we met Tom, Bill decided he was going to get a tattoo, a big one, on his back. He searched out pictures for the perfect one and settled on a serene mermaid, her face averted as she floated poised over a good third of Bill's back. I thought it was awful big. I kept looking at the perfect smooth tanned expanse of his back and couldn't imagine how it would look with the turquoise and green mermaid superimposed over it. What if I didn't like it? Didn't matter, did it? She'd be there to stay for hell or high water! The day of his appointment came and I went along to the tattoo parlor. The artist, Dana, is a real bona fide artist, she just likes to work with skin rather than canvas. I think she could paint anything, she's that good. And let me tell you, she made that mermaid practically spring to life. But I couldn't stay there and watch it emerge. When the tattoo gun fired up, I bolted out of the shop and spent the next hour and a half walking around the mall, my stomach churning with worry over what was going on on Bill's back. I even (briefly) started to call Tom and read him the Riot Act for being an instigator of this tattoo business but I stopped myself before I did. I figured that made me look sort of like a crazy person. Which is what I felt like.

Well, like I said, the mermaid turned out perfectly. Bill was thrilled. He made another appointment and went back in a few months for a huge sea monster that appeared to be sneaking up on the unaware mermaid. Over the next year, he added fish, a terrific sea turtle, jelly fish and a sunken ship. His back is a true underwater scene.

So we became friends with the tattoo artist and I found myself making an appointment for a tattoo myself. She's a big fairy, covering a third of my upper back. She took two sessions to complete and I have to say the outlining of her wasn't near as painful as the coloring in. When I finished the last of her, I swore to myself that this would be it, my one and only.

Only now, three years later, I want another. It's not as large as the fairy and I'm sure (I hope) won't be as painful. But I'm conflicted where it should be put. Since it's not as large, it could go on my upper arm. And I've thought real hard about that. But... (and this BUT seems to be growing larger) it seems to me that women who sport upper arm tattoos appear to be Hard. And why that should be, I'm not entirely sure. In that regard, I feel like I'm six years old again and watching my grandpa turn the bikers away. And really, if I'm an old lady of nearly sixty, why shouldn't I get a tattoo on my upper arm? I know I'm not Hard. I am what I am at this age and if I have a tattoo there, why not? But... Okay, so there's the lower leg. That seems less Hard to me than the upper arm. But... I'm not sure I want a tattoo on my lower leg. I'm just not sure how it would look with a suit and heels, IF I should decide to wear a suit and heels, which I usually do not, BUT I might. What does it say about an old woman in her sixties and seventies going to church in a suit and heels and wearing a big tattoo on her lower leg? I don't know. I haven't decided. Now what I'll probably do is hide it. Hide it sort of the same way I hid the fairy on my back. It's not visible most of the time. I wear a halter top or backless top at a Harley function to get it noticed, usually. Oh, I think the last time some stranger called attention to it was when I was getting a Cat Scan and the two (men) attendants running the machine commented on it since I was wearing one of those open backed hospital gowns. No, where I'll probably put it is on my stomach. Then I can show it off with summer clothes or a swimsuit. I won't have to worry if I go sleeveless to a grocery store or wear that suit and heels to church what a stranger will think about a tattooed sixty year old woman.

But it might be nice to be edgey and push the envelope and watch people's eyes slide away from my face and make them wonder what kind of person I really am. Hmmmmm.... well, I still have a couple of weeks to make up my mind where that new tattoo will be put.