I dropped the kids off at school, then drove home to sit in my car in the driveway thinking about memories in the very early morning light. Not just mental memories, but physical representation of them. What sparked this? Believe it or not, a pop song from the movie "The Hunger Games."
Recently I've been, well, "searching" for myself. Wondering who I am and where am I. This stems mainly from being fractured so very badly from a trauma that left me physically and mentally in pieces. I remember not much of my recovery and there are huge painful gaps in my memories. But I do remember asking one of the many specialists working with me and my poor brain if I should be "sewing" the old pieces of me that I could remember with these frightening new pieces of me. Or should I just kill the old "me," forget her and let myself grieve for her. Surprise, surprise, no clear cut answer.
Seams are the scars of cuts and are necessary to make something new. In medicine, they talk of letting wounds "knit" or heal, to make the tissue or the brain whole again. But, there is a scar, a "seam." A physical reminder of the wound itself.
I never understood the urge to get a tattoo. One of my girlfriends has an art gallery all over her body. Not for me. Why change what you were born with? But this morning, it dawned on me that the tattoos are memories printed on the skin. They are symbols of where you are and your ideas of who you are at a certain time and space. And they can define you.
Tribal tattoos and body scarring has always fascinated me. Now I don't mean those silly "tribal" tattoos that every Tom, Dick and Harry were plastering their bodies with in the 1990s. I mean the "real" ones that indigenous peoples create on themselves in relation to their customs and cultures. Ever see the movie "The Piano"with Harvey Keitel? I adore that movie. The Maori people in it are fascinating, and I find the tattoos that they adorn their faces with really beautiful.
Gorgeous designs and patterning! (And the men are handsome to boot!)
To tattoo the face is a very bold thing to do. There is no hiding it, but it can be a "mask" that is meant to be interpreted by the viewer. Maori facial tattoos are to highlight the strength and the fierceness of the warrior. That is the "mask" they wear and idea they project.
I can relate to this. At my darkest point, I used smiles, jokes and being very attentive listener as a "mask" the pain and mixed up person I was. One of the psychologists hit it right on the head when he said I was so very funny and engaging, but obviously I was wearing this mask because I was in his office. Happy people are not referred to him. That was like a left hook to the jaw and the masked slipped. He got the see the real mess underneath.
And now back to "The Hunger Games." Katniss is damaged from the games. She exhibits symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think she was predisposed to this from the trauma she sustained earlier from the death of her father and the emotional withdrawal from her mother's breakdown. Being the one to make sure the family did not die of starvation was also a huge stress factor. She was primed for PTSD.
Jennifer Lawrence did a wonderful job portraying Katniss.
Lorde, a young New Zealand singer/poet wrote the gripping song "Yellow Flicker Beat."
Beautiful lyrics. I especially love:
The scars are silver and gold, they are precious because she can never forget how she got them. That brings me back to body adornment. Tattoos and scarification.
I recently found out about tattoos created with white ink and I adore them. They looks like a ghost of an image, a light kiss of colour applied to the skin. But as beautiful as they are, I am still hesitant to get one.
They must be applied by a master tattooist because the white ink is so hard to control. It can get into the "blood" and move slightly, making the design look like a scar. Designs must be applied free hand due to image transfer inks applied to the skin for a tattooist to follow can mix with the white ink whist the needle pierces through them and muddy the white ink. If they are done right, they are so beautiful.
Recently I've been, well, "searching" for myself. Wondering who I am and where am I. This stems mainly from being fractured so very badly from a trauma that left me physically and mentally in pieces. I remember not much of my recovery and there are huge painful gaps in my memories. But I do remember asking one of the many specialists working with me and my poor brain if I should be "sewing" the old pieces of me that I could remember with these frightening new pieces of me. Or should I just kill the old "me," forget her and let myself grieve for her. Surprise, surprise, no clear cut answer.
Seams are the scars of cuts and are necessary to make something new. In medicine, they talk of letting wounds "knit" or heal, to make the tissue or the brain whole again. But, there is a scar, a "seam." A physical reminder of the wound itself.
I never understood the urge to get a tattoo. One of my girlfriends has an art gallery all over her body. Not for me. Why change what you were born with? But this morning, it dawned on me that the tattoos are memories printed on the skin. They are symbols of where you are and your ideas of who you are at a certain time and space. And they can define you.
Tribal tattoos and body scarring has always fascinated me. Now I don't mean those silly "tribal" tattoos that every Tom, Dick and Harry were plastering their bodies with in the 1990s. I mean the "real" ones that indigenous peoples create on themselves in relation to their customs and cultures. Ever see the movie "The Piano"with Harvey Keitel? I adore that movie. The Maori people in it are fascinating, and I find the tattoos that they adorn their faces with really beautiful.
To tattoo the face is a very bold thing to do. There is no hiding it, but it can be a "mask" that is meant to be interpreted by the viewer. Maori facial tattoos are to highlight the strength and the fierceness of the warrior. That is the "mask" they wear and idea they project.
I can relate to this. At my darkest point, I used smiles, jokes and being very attentive listener as a "mask" the pain and mixed up person I was. One of the psychologists hit it right on the head when he said I was so very funny and engaging, but obviously I was wearing this mask because I was in his office. Happy people are not referred to him. That was like a left hook to the jaw and the masked slipped. He got the see the real mess underneath.
And now back to "The Hunger Games." Katniss is damaged from the games. She exhibits symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think she was predisposed to this from the trauma she sustained earlier from the death of her father and the emotional withdrawal from her mother's breakdown. Being the one to make sure the family did not die of starvation was also a huge stress factor. She was primed for PTSD.
Lorde, a young New Zealand singer/poet wrote the gripping song "Yellow Flicker Beat."
I'm a princess cut from marble, smoother than a stormAnd these:
And the scars that mark my body, they're silver and gold
And now people talk to me I'm slipping out of reach nowAh, ptsd and a little hyper-vigilance in there. Gotta love that mix.
People talk to me, and all their faces blur
But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison
And I'm locking up everyone that ever laid a finger on me
The scars are silver and gold, they are precious because she can never forget how she got them. That brings me back to body adornment. Tattoos and scarification.
I recently found out about tattoos created with white ink and I adore them. They looks like a ghost of an image, a light kiss of colour applied to the skin. But as beautiful as they are, I am still hesitant to get one.
They must be applied by a master tattooist because the white ink is so hard to control. It can get into the "blood" and move slightly, making the design look like a scar. Designs must be applied free hand due to image transfer inks applied to the skin for a tattooist to follow can mix with the white ink whist the needle pierces through them and muddy the white ink. If they are done right, they are so beautiful.
They make me think of knitted or tatted lace when I look at them. Knitting was so central to my recovery. Should I tattoo a design on my body to pay homage to it? Hmmm.
When in New York for Vogue Knitting 2014, it dawned on me that this city would definitely have a tattooist capable of quality of work I am thinking about. But I did not have any time to research it properly. Plus, sitting in workshops trying to learn new things with a skin wound did not appeal to me. I let shrugged the idea off.
I've chatted with a few people that have amazingly, insanely intricate tattoos that I've met here and there. The main consensus indicates that these types of tattoos are not stable. They tend to fade over time. Huh. If I have a mind to do it, I'm going to research that further. If I ever choose to tattoo my body, I want that visual representation of a memory to be permanent, like a scar.
Scars do not bother me. In fact, they can be rather beautiful. Scarification is a process of cutting and removing pieces of the skin in a pattern for body adornment. It's like cutting your "brand" into the skin. Every person's skin reacts differently to cuts. The scar may be raised or flat. They may fade to white after time or they may not. Tricky things, scars.
The permanency of scarification appeals to me, but the process? Not so much. If you are not faint of heart, try googling scarification. All I can say is YIKES.
So, if you were to celebrate a memory, what would you print on your skin?
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