Alright. Here's the tattoo
from last week's post. Let me break it down.
The
Mockingbird
That is the mockingbird from
the cover of the copy of To Kill A Mockingbird I read my sophomore year of
high school. It's the only book I've read more than once. Although, I would
estimate that with all the years I spent in church listening to the readings
and lessons from the Bible , it could almost count as having read it more than
once. Who am I kidding? I tuned out the verses that had nothing to do with the
stories and parables I learned from 1st - 6th grades. And, then I only paid
attention when the words triggered a memory associated with cartoon
illustrations.
One of my friends said this
looked like one of the felt banners from our Lutheran elementary school. I'll
be damned. It does. That was not my intent at all. At first I was a little
disgusted with that, but hey--church and school and religion and God planted
some pretty awesome seeds in me. Argh! Those are leaves--not seeds!
Back to the Mockingbird. Ya
know--just go read it again. Or for the first time. You'd be glad you did.
I studied it at a time of coming into my own and
the book is about that--both for the young characters in it and adults as well.
There are themes of racial justice along with the coming of age. There is
judgment that arises out of fear. And Scout. That full-of-sprite little imp. It’s
easy to see my youthful self in her. From how she describes her school teacher
as a "pretty little thing" and laments the gender roles while she plays
with her brother and Dill to her curiosities and fears—I coulda been
Scout. Yeah. We could have shared a skin. Maybe a cow suit.
The book touts integrity, grit,
simplicity and adventure. I feel those richly when I embody them, and it stings
like a tattoo needle when I wish I would have. When I know I should have.
I don't read. I am embarrassed
to admit that. As I'm coming into my own as a writer there are only a handful
of books and authors that could get a nod as an influence. Harper Lee almost
stands alone. She never married, ya know.
If I'd have ever had a child,
I would have named him Harper Wayne (after my dad) or her Harper Rose (after my
mom's favorite Rosie the Riveter.) Out of every 100 times that I think about
not having kids, I only tear up one of them. Maybe two.
The
Moments
There is the fall on my
wrist. I love fall. I love the colors and many memories of falls past centered
around mountain biking, fresh starts with the beginning of school years and
volleyball. I wore #9 in high school and college. Yep--9 leaves. It matches the
couple of Mile 9 signs in my garage. (I hope the statute of limitations has
lapsed on those.)
Although I love fall, I don't
enjoy it fully because I worry about the impending winter. I wanted that
reminder to enjoy the moment. The colors capture the leaves as they go from the
brilliant greens, to sunny yellow, to vibrant orange and the fiery, daunting
red before they die. The planner and control-freak in me is captured in the
design's simplicity, but there is also "enjoy the moment and be
spontaneous, you ninny" to be gleaned. I just wrote the following for my
next column in the Idaho State Journal:
October is gone. I spend September
dreading it and November missing it. My heart is never finished mountain biking
for the season and Pocatello’s City Creek trails were particularly grand this
year. While zipping down the trails, I want to stop the leaves from dying. I
want to catch them mid-air and scoop them off the ground and put them back on
their branches one by one. I fail to relish the colors and beauty in life’s
cycle of the season because the dying in October distracts and saddens me.
Matthew
Shepard died in October. Fifteen years ago, the 21 year old University of
Wyoming college student was tied to a fence and beaten on a Wyoming prairie.
I
spend many moments each fall reflecting on Matthew and the many like him. Us.
It’s still weird to go ahead and use the first person. Matthew was killed during a
beautiful season.
The Marks
I
wanted the colors of the rainbow. I wanted blue wisps in the background but
Blaze, the tattoo artist, suggested we not. Something about balance and
contrast and worry I wouldn't be happy with it. I controlled the mini internal
freak out nicely. I wanted the rainbow colors, dammit! All of them. How was I
going to reconcile no blue?
It
dawned on me later the next day. That deep ocean blue of her eyes. It's not
with me anymore. The color's absence on my wrist highlights the beauty and
color that once was but ... just isn't now. And it's okay. The tattoo is going
to be okay.
There’s
a wart on my wrist. On the mockingbird’s right wing just above the greenest
leaf. I hadn’t realized it was there until the color took form and a different
shade atop the wart took hold. It makes me a little crazy. If I could go back,
I think I’d rotate the mockingbird about 2 millimeters. I would. But, I can’t. That’s
probably good. I focus on imperfections too much—in myself and in others. Not just any “others” but ones who are close
to me. It’s amazingly disturbing actually.
A
friend of mine (who needs to cow with me!!) sent me this quote recently from
hplyrikz.com:
The
truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you’ll see
their flaws. That’s just the way it is. That is why marriages fail, why
children are abandoned, why friendships don’t last. You might think you love
someone until you see the way they act when they’re out of money or under
pressure or hungry, for goodness’ sake. Love is something different. Love is
choosing to serve someone and be with someone in spite of their filthy heart.
Love is patient and kind, love is deliberate. Love is hard. Love is pain and
sacrifice, it’s seeing the darkness in another person and defying the impulse
to jump ship.
Yeah.
All that. All that lies on my little mockingbird’s purple, warted wing. He's got a bit of darkness in his tail but a bold brilliance in the rest of his color. Weird. I do think of it as a him. I really don't know what that's about. Should it be a "her"? Great. Now I'm going to focus on some gender questions with my mockingbird and wonder why the hell I have to be such a binary thinker. What great mental fodder for a fallish mountain bike ride. Wonder what Scout would think?