At A Glance Author Danielle Contact [email protected] IAM Vanilla When N/A Thirteen years ago I was rebellious. You could have called me goth from how I dressed - head to toe in black - than again, by those standards you would call me goth as I stand today. I wandered the streets alone in the middle of the night. I ran away from home to stay the nights with my boyfriend at the time. I was running around with 'the wrong crowd.' I split from the guy I was seeing because he decided to cheat on me. I deserved better, but I wanted to wait a bit to find that 'better.'My parents were, well it was my mother and her boyfriend at the time really, they had just started going out. My mother was strict, rightfully so. And around this time I was finally getting fed up with every restriction that was being placed upon me. So, one day I decided to defile what was often praised by my mother for being so pure and so beautiful. I chose my design, a moon being grasped by three dragons claws trailing up to a star. To me it meant 'don't stop at the stars' - when you do something do it completely, go beyond even your own expectations.
A few short days later I sat facing forward on demand, I wore a bra and he got his gun ready. The image would be placed above my right breast. The pain was bearable. More of a hurt. It didn't really sting. Didn't really do much. I left his 'studio' (really it was his apartment) incredibly happy. I wasn't given aftercare or anything of that nature, I was just told to leave it alone and it would heal.
Perhaps it was a sign, perhaps an omen that a week later it peeled off. Literally the ink pulled out and it was gone. I had the chance at that moment to just stop there. To not have it redone. I had the chance to walk away from being forever marked.
Yet I returned. To another 'artist' if that's what you want to call him though he was more just someone who knew how to hold a pen and thought a gun was the same. So I sat, I purchased the ink that was used, I remember it perfectly - Pelican water-based ink. I'm surprised it stayed in me as long as it has. So I endured his marking - and the tattoo was placed deep this time, and it hurt. Full colour and all. And it was blurry, not crisp like the first time. But this time it didn't peel off. And so that was that. My first tattoo.
A week into healing and my cat scratched my chest, tearing out the colour in three streaks, this tattoo was simply not meant to be. However it was my initiation into the body modification community.
There wasn't much of a community in the town I grew up in. There were no studios, no official practitioners of the arts. I had to stick with the underground scene. Whisper around the local pool halls getting names and places for that first inking. Though I knew when to stop and let things be...and so I waited.
Six years passed. I had just turned 18 five months previous. I had been planning an image for years that I wanted on my extreme lower back - crowning my tailbone, an orchid. The symbol - to me - of something that needs only the basics of life to live, yet can survive so much better with so much more care. A beautiful plant that, in it's variances offers flowers, scents, wood, seeds, pods, fruit, beans, spice, fragrance, and so much more. And so it was. I worked as a waitress in a local bar and grill and from my tips I was able to save the six hundred dollars to have it done. My sister drove me to the city for the first appointment, during these three hours the Orchid itself was inked. It was beautiful, but after three hours I simply could not take anymore. And so a second appointment was booked. I returned a month later and had the tribal added, the orchid itself was never completed - but for a reason. And after six hours it was done, and it was beautiful.
And then I forgot about it. It was always there but I never noticed it. I never had to worry about it showing, or clashing, or being mistaken for a bruise. My first tattoo took all of that attention.
When I had Orchid inked the only person who knew was my sister. I didn't dare tell my parents as they already thought it was mutilation what I did to my chest. Unfortunately, one day I was wearing shorts in the house and bent over to pick something up...the tip of the Orchid showed, and my father noticed. Sure enough, a few days later my mother asked, "Danielle, did you get another tattoo?" I knew there was no sense in lying or trying to hide it. I said, "Yes." And proceeded to show her. She was outraged but said very firmly, "I don't know why you do that to yourself, but it's your body." I laughed and said it was a mother's day gift to her - a joke she uses to this day to whore out my tattoos to anyone who is near.
By this time I was well into my ideas of what I wanted. I started to plan. I realized that my first tattoo was a mistake. Though I admit that it is what got me into realizing and seeing my body as a completely viable canvas - it wasn't meant to stay. So I booked a removal session. I had done research on how to have it successfully removed. I booked a consultation for laser removal. I was told it would need between four and six sessions. The tattoo that originally cost me fifty-five dollars was about to cost me a whole lot more in money, pain, and healing. One fifteen minute laser session, and two hundred and fifty-five dollars later the black ink in the tattoo is gone. I still have half of a tube of Emla that I used for the removal. The colour remains, a fossil of the original. The procedure was as painful as I would expect a branding to be, if not more so because it happens in little shocks. I simply could not justify having four more sessions done at that c ost with that level of pain. Though I would much rather have that particular tattoo gone, I have decided on a cover up.
Another couple of years passed and things were happening to me. Parts of my life were being severed. I had gotten through university, I had married out of necessity and was starting a divorce, I had a business and it was doing well - I had a path in life. I had worked hard to get to where I was and with all of the momentous changes taking place I wanted to mark the occasion.
I wanted a piece to represent who I was, and who I was becoming. I wanted something to balance me. My own personal ritual with the needles. I felt very much alone at this point in my life. I wasn't hopeless but I certainly didn't know what would happen. Perhaps, considering the circumstances, spending seven hundred dollars on a tattoo wasn't the financially intelligent thing to do. But I needed it.
And in two short weeks I created a design that I wanted placed on my nape. However, a few necessary changes were made and it ended up a little lower and larger. Takemusu Aiki was born and given residence on my back. The main part of this image is a Kanji phrase that states that I am in harmony with the universe. And that my words keep me in this state of harmony. It is the theory not the actual words that I look at - I do not do aikido, but if you are familiar with the practice of the art then surely you are familiar with the mindset. This is what I was embracing - what I do embrace. The phrase is flanked by wings, done in an incredibly intricate, curvaceous, yet almost technically organic way. The phrase is my chrysalis, showing me that as long as I am in harmony with myself and my universe that I will be able to advance in my life.
I had been birthed into this culture, given the chance to retreat and stay hidden - I stepped forward. And forward I went, starting low and building my way to the courage of words. I turned twenty-four, twelve years before I was initiated, and almost six years to the day I had had my third tattoo inked by the same artist who did my second six years previous. The first is holding strong, that ink, as inappropriate as it was - stays. Perhaps it really is meant to be a part of me. It simply does not want to leave.
Now each day I wake, I shower, I dress, and I live this life. I am now immersed in the culture that I craved with those first drops. Shortly after getting Takemusu Aiki my divorce was finalized after a yearlong mandatory separation and six months of processing time, I was free to begin my life anew. And I did. Because of Orchid I was allowed into a community that accepted me as I was, as I would be. This community introduced me to many people who have stood by, offered kind words, just been there when things were incredibly difficult. Many people have allowed me to share intimate parts of their lives. And one, one very special person has offered me a part of his. If it weren't for my first ink experience I would not have made it to this point - having met my soul mate. Outside of the IAM community the chances were slim to none that we would have crossed paths. Some things are simply meant to be.
So what's the secret I hide from myself? My tattoos. I don't see them. They are hidden, behind me. Just sitting there until I am ready to look at them and appreciate them for where they have helped me to get, for who they have helped me to become. Certainly the one on my chest is visible, but when I look at it I simply want it gone. It was a bad decision at the time - and though it certainly had its place and purpose it is not something I am proud of. But it is there, a constant reminder of what started me on this path of self-discovery through modification.
When I step out of the shower, and am drying myself off sometimes I catch myself off guard, with the flick of a wrist the towel drops unveiling these masterpieces in my flesh. My constant reminders of struggles past, of days yet to come, and for a few moments I stand and I admire my canvas. And though I know they are there I am not always conscious of them - and they tend to take me by surprise just showing up like that. Somewhat like a goldfish encountering that elusive and amazing castle so new and fresh each time.
Soon they won't be so mysterious. I've planned a piece for my entire back to join Orchid and Takemusu Aiki, sleeves to allow me to see my placement, and a chest piece to cover that first tattoo...perhaps I'll leave traces of it in the design - just to remind me of what my first step was. My fourth, but not last, tattoo will be a large one. Covering more than a third of my body. The fourth will plunge me deeper than I have ever imagined into who I am. It will also include a special memento for my Love. Something he can call his own on me. A tribute, etched in flesh, of all that envelopes me today.
It won't be long until every time I stretch, shake someone's hand, touch my face, wipe away a tear, or hide my face while smiling and blushing - the ink that has helped me to form a suit of armor against all that defies me will catch my eye, and I'll remember all that I am. I will be reminded in flashes of who I was at the tender age of 12 marking myself for life, who I was at the age of 18 dedicating my flesh to art, who I was at 24 feeling my way through a mess of opportunity and marking it with the harmony of ink and skin, and who I am yet to be.
The mirror won't keep my secrets much longer. Soon, as the water and fire cascade down my arms I will be enveloped in what I hold so dear. And my canvas will be nearly complete.