As it turned out, my layover was longer than I expected. With 90 minutes to kill, with lots of dreadful sunshine and 30+something degrees, I had to find some shade and bench to sit on. People were passing by, I kept reading my new book and all was quite dandy and nice, when this guy sat down next to me. His smell was the first thing I noticed - a mix of sweat (30 degrees, right?) and alcohol; the mix I really hate. I checked him out - a casual glance before turning back to my book. Then his calf with a monochromatic tattoo and his cautious question: "Excuse me, can I ask you some question?"
At A Glance Author Ania Contact [email protected] IAM deadly pale When N/A Location Poland It was tattoos, of course; probably the only thing we had in common. He wanted to know who did my tattoos and when I said "a professional tattoo artist", I felt stupid right away. How good this answer could actually be? One thing led to the other (remember what most modified people say? our mods are, allegedly, a good conversation starter) and I learned that his tattoos were done in prison and could catch a glance of his back as he decided to show me his back piece. We started discussing our tattoos - mine with many colors and cool shading and his, no colors but, I bet, as meaningful as my own. He told me about prison tattoos and that their tattoo artists, not real pro's, are also very talented; where they take the ink from and that it is illegal to do such things in prison. It was an interesting experience for me but nothing too big.
I am not the most easily approachable person out there and most people feel it. This guy at the bus station was the second random person ever who actually asked me anything. I was slightly wary of this guy; after all, it was hot (and I hate when it is hot!), I just started reading this new cool book in German (does it really matter that I have already read it in English? Different languages make books look better or worse, that's a fact!) and it was just another conversation about mods. I do it every single day, after all. It is as simple as logging in and talking to online friends, the modified ones. Simple, is it not? Well, for the guy from the bust station, Piotr, it was not so easy. We chatted about his tattoos (and I was so relieved that I did not go for guessing what his calf tattoo was about!), music and politics (side note: Poles hate political science but can talk, or actually complain, about politics/politicians/corruption for hours on end!), religion and his situation in his town. I was told that his family does not like when he shows their tattoos off and that most people think about him in terms of ex-inmate more than anything. General things that let him think he could get more personal with me. Apparently it was a big thing for him to meet someone whose tattoos are as visible as his own; someone who is not ashamed of getting tattooed; someone who is not only into booze and meaningless conversations. He seemed to be moved although it is hard to tell how honest his attitude and words were - the amount of consumed alcohol can make us all quite pathetic. Before he left (the lucky one, his bus departed much earlier than mine) I gave him the url of BME and said how cool it would be if he wrote a story or two about his tattoos.
This is just one of these situations that can happen any day to any of us. We get approached by people who are not modified (and you probably more often than me), asked various questions, discuss our points of view on various degrees of sophistication and sometimes get surprised how it is possible that "plainskins" don't get "it". After all it is so simple - our reasons, our aesthetics, our attitude. And even if we and them are so outraged by the other side's point of view, we still have our haven. No matter what "they", people with clean/smooth/whole/whatever skin say or think about us, we still are strong enough to not care because we always end up here. And here we are "normal" and accepted not matter what.
When I get a new tattoo (piercing) done, things happen this way: I am very excited and beside myself with joy; my tattoo artist (piercer) is happy to see me happy with his work; members of my family roll their eyes and ask themselves *queitly* "how many more yet?"; IAM friends are happy for me and probably too scared of me to say anything except "Ania, this stuff is just awesome!" Knowing that there are people who accept and understand is a very important thing.
I have always been alone with my aesthetics, passions, interests and it was very hard. BME gave me a lot because it gave me new, wonderful friends (and after knowing and still liking some online people for a year or two I feel I can call them my friends!), it let and still does develop my interests and enjoy and treasure the person I am.
So now to the point of this text. If you think that this way I want to show my gratitude, you are mistaken. I think the best way to show how grateful and in debt to BME I am is action, so my way of saying "thank you" is usually experience reviewing and even this thing is more of pleasure than self-imposed obligation. My point here is that there are many people out there who are not as lucky as we, IAM-ers or people knowing and enjoying BME. There are many people as this random guy I met yesterday at the bus station in a small Polish town. They do not know BME from various reasons; maybe they do not have a good access to the internet; maybe they are not native English speakers (not all people were born English or American, ya know?) and the language barrier is the biggest obstacle for them; maybe they live in countries that are much poorer than North American or European ones. There may be lots of different reasons why people who choose to modify themselves feel lonely and abandoned. They cannot talk about their mods with people around them, they feel no one understands them and maybe they really mean it when they say to a random tattooed chick met at the bus station that talking to her meant a lot to them.
I remember reading one of posts in Shannon's blog where he wrote "you are lucky and rich if you read this!", meaning that the access to the internet is awfully limited in our world, that there are so many people who not only can't play with the web but also do not have anything to eat or can't read.
I do not expect to change anyone's attitude or way of thinking but my own. Piotr, the guy from the bus station, showed me clearly that Dr. BME is a powerful weapon against Mr. Plainskin. Closed-minded people with clean, plain skin can try to show me how stupid decisions regarding my body are but they are not able to change anything. Unlike Piotr, I am NOT alone. Next time I feel low about anything the plainskins said/did to me, I will think about this accidental meet in the middle of nowhere and feel how lucky to be here, on BME, I am.