The Permanence of Change
It has been at least 20 years since I first considered getting a tattoo. At that time, in my mid-early 20s, I wanted to get a half sun — the Fresh Fields logo, a brand I had no association with except a t-shirt I liberated from my sister, or maybe she gave it to me — on my upper left arm. The tattooist looked at this half sun in its hand-drawn style and said, “let me clean this up for you, make it more even.” I didn’t appreciate his critique as I wanted the hand-drawn feel, but in retrospect he did me an enormous favor. He convinced me, with his “I know better” attitude, that I didn’t want him to tattoo me. And he was right, kind of; I would still probably be regretting that half sun tattoo, hand drawn feel or not.
So, for 20-ish years, I’ve thought about getting, and not getting, a tattoo. My wife, technically speaking, has four tattoos, though her second one is covering up the first. She told me she’s always wanted a tattoo, but waited until her mid-20s to get her first. Now she’s planning for her next one, and the one after that…
I thought about what I wanted to get tattooed on my body — a dragon, a tiger, an ornamental pattern. What does it mean to have a dragon tattoo? What kind of dragon? Does one choose a tiger to represent their inner tiger on the outside, or simply because they like big cats? What meaning does an ornamental pattern have, besides being ornamental? Does a tattoo need to have meaning?
Finally, finally, I decided I wanted something alive, but not a creature, something graphical, while not being purely ornamental. Something that has personal meaning for me, but doesn’t necessarily have a specific visual representation to others. I thought about it for years. I decided on the silhouettes of trees: Douglas fir, spruce, red cedar. Do I need to explain what they mean to you? Or does that permanence and personal-ness create meaning in and of itself?
Maybe there’s a bit of both. There is nothing inherently special about these particular trees. I didn’t spend my childhood around these trees, though I’ve grown up around them. It’s less about the trees, and more about the concept of permanence and change. And I like the way they look. I like their aesthetic. That may be superficial on one level, how they look, but aesthetics can go deeper… the feeling created by appearance.
Is my tattoo perfect? I don’t know. Is anything perfect? My wife told me, since I’m a perfectionist, that I should embrace wabi sabi, finding beauty in imperfection, the acceptance of transience. Is it ironic to find wabi sabi in a tattoo, something that is permanent? That’s what frightened me most about getting a tattoo… not that it would hurt, not that it would be permanent, but that it wouldn’t be perfect.
Getting a tattoo has shown me that nothing is permanent or perfect. It isn’t. It can change. It can evolve. Technically, I could even remove it. I can add to it as my life changes, as my aesthetics change. Or it can stay as it is, and age with me. I see it and know that at one time it didn’t exist; now it does. We choose how we define permanence, how we define perfection, and how we define change. Wabi sabi. Nothing is permanent unless we stop changing. Or, the only thing permanent is that things will always change.
A huge thank you goes out to Joanne Slorach at the Hive Tattoo for working with me over the last 9 months to come up with a design and putting it on me. You should give them a call, but not before my wife gets her next tattoo… she doesn’t want to have to wait in line behind you.
