Our second granddaughter, 19 years old and earning money in a part time job answering phone calls for Transport for Greater Manchester, spent some of her money on a discreet little tattoo on her wrist: two birds. Some months later she spent rather more money, including money given to her for her 19th birthday on a tattoo-artist-designed hourglass image which covers almost the whole of her forearm. When I saw her the other day she showed me a photo of a tattoo someone has had inflicted upon themselves, beginning on the back of one shoulder and kind of swooping over the shoulder and down the upper arm. She would now like something of this kind and is considering asking her very artistic older sister to design her something. In that way it would be a unique affair. Nobody else would have that tattoo. Which is fine if you like tattoos.
And I am afraid I don’t like tattoos. It’s a very permanent way of adorning your body and one that you might regret in later life. Goodness! it took a long time for me to finally decide to have my ears pierced. I must have been on my forties. I had always resisted having my ears pierced - for similar reasons as my opposition to tattoos. And then I had my hair cut very short and ear rings really enhanced the look. But clip-on earrings are the cruellest kind of jewellery imaginable. After a while your earlobes start to throb. Then they go numb but when you remove the earrings and blood starts to flow back into the tortured earlobes, you go through another, different kind of agony. So I took the plunge and had my ears pierced. And now I have a ridiculously large collection of earrings, none of them terribly expensive I hasten to add but selected to coordinate with whatever I choose to wear on a given day.
And I think that that is another reason for my dislike of tattoos; not only are they permanent but they are invariable. All you can do is hide them under clothing. I am reminded of John Irving’s novel “Until I Find You”, where the protagonist has almost all his body covered in tattoos. I also think of an acquaintance if mine who has spent huge amount of money having tattoos removed: names of former girlfriends and the like. Even so, when he gets hot or agitated the ghostly outline of his old tattoos shows against his skin. As I said earlier, much too permanent!
And then today I read this:
“Ukrainians are inking the fight for their country on to their bodies, with artists getting requests for tattoos of molotov cocktails, anti-tank missiles and even a type of bread that has become an unlikely symbol of national identity because Russians struggle to pronounce it.
As people filtered back to Kyiv after Russian troops abandoned their attempts to seize it, tattoo artists noticed an increasing demand for art that paid tribute to this spring of tragedy and violence, and to Ukraine’s spirit of resistance.
“I wanted to capture this moment,” said Mariika, a tattoo artist who now has an anti-tank hedgehog on her leg and a molotov cocktail on her arm.”
Apparently the tattoo artists are giving the proceeds from such works of art to the Ukrainian armed forces. Nonetheless it seems to me an odd way to demonstrate your love for your country. But then, each to his own…
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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