As I believe I mentioned in another post in my blog (or maybe two or three posts, as it's never far from my mind), I lost my dad when he was 51, just a little over a month before his 52nd birthday. Not only did that change my direction from going into acting, as he was my rudder, but it also put a thought in my head that I should do something special should I live to the age of 52. Something permanent. Something to mark me as having survived to see a birthday that was cruelly denied for my father.
Last year, just after I had my 52nd birthday, I got a tattoo on my left shoulder:
The tiger has symbolism beyond the fact that my novels all involve a tiger in the form of a young woman who hid in plain sight by painting herself with tiger stripes. The tiger appeared many times before that in my younger life.
There was the fact that, at the tender age of six, when The Wonderful World of Disney first aired "The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", I memorized the Tigger song the first time that "stripety" cat ever bounced onto the screen. One of my cousins, hearing me sing the song while we were playing, nicknamed me Tigger....and several of my cousins still call me that when we get together. I have Tiggers, big, small and in between, all over my house.
In the barn that my grandfather ran as a dairy farm, there were feral cats. LOTS of feral cats. For the most part, they all had tiger stripes and fought like little ninjas when we were asked to round them up so that the visiting vet could give them rabies vaccines while checking on Pepere's cows. I wear the scars from some of the battles to corral them and have always had a healthy respect for a cat's ability to defend itself because of those little tiny tigers who lived in the secret places of Pepere's barn.
When I got to middle and high school age, the school mascot was the tiger. Everything I have around my house from DRHS features the snarling face of a tiger.
The list could go on, but I suspect you have the gist.
That was why, when I saw the Chinese horoscope-based tattoo of this marvelous animal, I printed it off and started going from tattoo parlor to tattoo parlor to get a price and find the person who my intuition told me was going to be the best person to put my symbol of survival on my left shoulder - over my heart, where my father has always been even though he was taken from me when I was only 19.
And I found a kindred soul when I showed the print to a lovely lady at a tattoo parlor that had been suggested by a dear friend. Jen Jacques took one look at the drawing and I watched her face light up the same way my face must have when I saw it. It took over three hours to complete, but my beautiful tiger with the Benton green eyes has been my delight for almost a year now, especially when I get out of the shower and see him in my mirror - my symbol of survival and a permanent memorial to a man who was taken from me too soon, a man who should have been here to enjoy the beautiful little granddaughter who is the love of my life and my pride and joy.
But although I had planned on the first tattoo being the only one I ever had, I've discovered what other people I know were talking about when they sagely looked and me as said "SURE it's going to be your one and only. Tell me that NEXT year....."
Um yeah.
Even as I type this, Jen is in the process of drawing me a very original Jen Jacques design for my right shoulder - and she's trying to talk me into putting it someplace where I can actually see it and admire it. But hey, I'm going to be 53 in a couple of months. I have massive varicose veins in my legs from having children and an old back injury that messed up my circulation. My biceps are starting to develop that "bat wing" look so common to older people, and lets not even go to some of the other places my body is starting to show my age....
I think I'll stick to the shoulder, which is one of the places that I don't tend to store much fat and most people don't tend to wrinkle. I want the beautiful tattoo that Jen designs to still be beautiful when I'm sitting in a nursing home, unable to remember the story of why I got tattooed....
And this is the very rough drawing that Jen is refining for me while looking at more source photos and deciding whether we're just going to do a green wash for the background to set this beauty to set him apart from my skin - or whether we're going to go with the look of him coming out of hiding to "hunt" whoever is standing behind me.......*grin*
On April 9th, I'm going to be tattooed again. Again, I'm telling myself this will be the last one.
Um, yeah......
*grin*
Last year, just after I had my 52nd birthday, I got a tattoo on my left shoulder:
The tiger has symbolism beyond the fact that my novels all involve a tiger in the form of a young woman who hid in plain sight by painting herself with tiger stripes. The tiger appeared many times before that in my younger life.
There was the fact that, at the tender age of six, when The Wonderful World of Disney first aired "The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", I memorized the Tigger song the first time that "stripety" cat ever bounced onto the screen. One of my cousins, hearing me sing the song while we were playing, nicknamed me Tigger....and several of my cousins still call me that when we get together. I have Tiggers, big, small and in between, all over my house.
In the barn that my grandfather ran as a dairy farm, there were feral cats. LOTS of feral cats. For the most part, they all had tiger stripes and fought like little ninjas when we were asked to round them up so that the visiting vet could give them rabies vaccines while checking on Pepere's cows. I wear the scars from some of the battles to corral them and have always had a healthy respect for a cat's ability to defend itself because of those little tiny tigers who lived in the secret places of Pepere's barn.
When I got to middle and high school age, the school mascot was the tiger. Everything I have around my house from DRHS features the snarling face of a tiger.
The list could go on, but I suspect you have the gist.
That was why, when I saw the Chinese horoscope-based tattoo of this marvelous animal, I printed it off and started going from tattoo parlor to tattoo parlor to get a price and find the person who my intuition told me was going to be the best person to put my symbol of survival on my left shoulder - over my heart, where my father has always been even though he was taken from me when I was only 19.
And I found a kindred soul when I showed the print to a lovely lady at a tattoo parlor that had been suggested by a dear friend. Jen Jacques took one look at the drawing and I watched her face light up the same way my face must have when I saw it. It took over three hours to complete, but my beautiful tiger with the Benton green eyes has been my delight for almost a year now, especially when I get out of the shower and see him in my mirror - my symbol of survival and a permanent memorial to a man who was taken from me too soon, a man who should have been here to enjoy the beautiful little granddaughter who is the love of my life and my pride and joy.
But although I had planned on the first tattoo being the only one I ever had, I've discovered what other people I know were talking about when they sagely looked and me as said "SURE it's going to be your one and only. Tell me that NEXT year....."
Um yeah.
Even as I type this, Jen is in the process of drawing me a very original Jen Jacques design for my right shoulder - and she's trying to talk me into putting it someplace where I can actually see it and admire it. But hey, I'm going to be 53 in a couple of months. I have massive varicose veins in my legs from having children and an old back injury that messed up my circulation. My biceps are starting to develop that "bat wing" look so common to older people, and lets not even go to some of the other places my body is starting to show my age....
I think I'll stick to the shoulder, which is one of the places that I don't tend to store much fat and most people don't tend to wrinkle. I want the beautiful tattoo that Jen designs to still be beautiful when I'm sitting in a nursing home, unable to remember the story of why I got tattooed....
And this is the very rough drawing that Jen is refining for me while looking at more source photos and deciding whether we're just going to do a green wash for the background to set this beauty to set him apart from my skin - or whether we're going to go with the look of him coming out of hiding to "hunt" whoever is standing behind me.......*grin*
On April 9th, I'm going to be tattooed again. Again, I'm telling myself this will be the last one.
Um, yeah......
*grin*
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