tattoo

Nine years ago yesterday, I got married. This year, with my divorce slowly working its way through the legal system, I celebrated my union and subsequent abandonment by getting a tattoo influenced in equal parts by old sailors and Oscar Wilde's letter from prison, "De Profundis."

It's big.

In tattoo tradition, the swallow is a harbinger of the approaching shoreline, and is used to commemorate 5000 nautical miles navigated. In lieu of sailing experience (except for that afternoon when I was 18 when I caught my first and last fish), I choose to use it to represent the romantic passage of the last eleven years, and the hope for a safe homecoming at the end of it. Hence the scroll, which is Wilde's imperative for those who are loved.

Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live. If any love is shown us we should recognize that we are quite unworthy of it. Nobody is worthy to be loved. The fact that God loves man shows that in the divine order of ideal things it is written that eternal love is to be given to what is eternally unworthy. Or if that phrase seems a bitter one to hear, let us say that everyone is worthy of love, except he who thinks he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus should be on the lips and hearts of those who receive it.
- p. 82

I promise, that's the last time you will see my write about Special Meaningful Meaning of this tattoo. I may be pretentious, but I hope I'm well aware of the depths of my own pretention.

It's still Too Hot. I'm getting a false sense of coolness when I move quickly from room to room, which instantly evaporates as soon as I sit down. Ugh. At least I managed to figure out the bathing thing: hair requires baths, tattoo requires showers, but it was time to wash the hair so I put the tattoo first today. I need an old fashioned shower cap. And a quilted bathrobe, maybe. I already have a wooden rolling pin.

Labels: angst

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 8/20/2009 04:00:00 p.m.