Defiance and Body Art

I have heard that getting a tattoo is an act of defiance.  Like most over generalizations, it’s a dangerous assumption to make.  I’ll admit, that when I got my tattoos, yes, there are two of them, it was an act of defiance.

I had just been unceremoniously dumped from a three-year relationship.  I was a mess.  The new girlfriend was 10 years younger, and was moving in the front door as I was being moved out the back door.  At what might be regarded the lowest point, I snuck back to the house one night at midnight to go through the garbage cans in the alley looking for credit card receipts.

There were symptoms of cheating for about six months without definitive evidence.  Relationship experts call this unsubstantiated “gut instinct” and the confusion caused by denial “crazy making”.  In my case, it was an appropriate title; I was acting crazy.

I drank like crazy, exercise like crazy (and lost 40 pounds), and went out and got myself not one, but two tattoos.

It was an act of defiance.  Symbolically, I was taking back my body.  I was terribly hurt, and in that pain.  I wanted to hurt myself.  I know women who cut themselves in similar circumstances.  I’m too much of a coward, so I had someone else do it for me.

The artist was named Zoo Bob, for some unknown reason.  That should’ve been my first clue.

I’m butterfly fanatic.  I have butterfly jewelry, butterfly print clothing and butterfly art all over my apartment.  So, it wasn’t a big surprise when I chose butterflies for my body art.

It wasn’t even a stretch for me to choose to act out this way– a tattoo.  I had been wearing fake tattoos for over a decade.  In my late 20s, I started painting a butterfly on my shoulder.  Standing in front of a mirror, I perfected the art using colored, water activated eyeliner.  It was quite elaborate; a purple butterfly in silhouette, on a curved brown branch with green leaves and tiny red flowers.  Even though it was labor-intensive, I painstakingly reproduced it year after year because I couldn’t find any that were commercially manufactured that captured my fancy.

10 years later, the fad had caught on, and there was a plethora of faux art from which to choose.  I began wearing a selection of fake flora and fauna applied to various appendages and body parts.

Before returning home from a business trip to Australia, I applied a lovely red Rose appliqué to my left breast.  It only showed above the neckline of my tank top if I bent over, which I did as I loaded my luggage into the trunk of my car, in front of my 17-year-old daughter.

By then, my daughters were old enough to be embarrassed by my eccentricities.  And this one, the younger, possessed a quick wit and a wicked tongue.  Without missing a beat, she snidely remarked, “That better be a fake, or when you’re old it’s going to be long stemmed!”

It may have been the accuracy of that comment that kept me from doing anything permanent until the spring of 1996.  I think I was more humiliated than heartbroken when that relationship ended.  We both traveled in a close circle of friends who knew me and the new girlfriend.  It was embarrassing; apparently for all of us.  They sold the house and moved to Seattle and I got a tattoo on my ass.

Enter Zoo Bob.  He was a motorcycle riding ex-Marine with long hair and a steady hand with which to produce body art.  My first tattoo was similar to the one I used to draw freehand; a butterfly on my left breast.  When it was done, I liked it so well, I commissioned a companion piece.

On the wall of the tattoo parlor there was a picture of a bare naked butterfly lady with elaborate wings and she was wearing red toe shoes!

Ten days later, and $300 poorer, after two sessions with Zoo Bob, I had my revenge.

I know the story about taking poison and hoping the other person dies of it.  I’m clear that there was an element of that in my defiance.

But, it wasn’t a simple as that.

I had seen women, survivors of breast cancer who tattooed their scars.  Those were acts of defiance, too.  They held a fierceness reflecting the courage of their journey; they had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and come out on the other side victorious.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very aware, as bad as my heartbreak had been, it was like comparing a piss ant to an elephant.

Just the same, I’d been hurt, risen above it, come out victorious on the other side and produce some art commemorating it.

P.S.                                                                                                                                                                                              Now so many years have passed since that era in my life, I sometimes go for months without really seeing this body art.  I bathe and dress and live my life with exuberant mindfulness in almost every area except this.  And, then I’ll bend over to put my groceries into the trunk of the car and see the flash of color above the neckline of my T-shirt– and I smile.