It’s About Healing
So much has happened in the last week…putting me to the test about how true I stand by my own tattoo that states change is for the better. I stand true!
Meanwhile, let me introduce Mim. She is none other than the mother of Noah (see below). An artist, a free spirit, and joyful person. She told me this story while I was in Richmond, at the salsa party she and Chuck hosted in their backyard. Ahhhhh…I miss those warm summer nights.
“Two years ago, on July 18 at 10:15 p.m., I fell.
I was jogging around the block with my dog. It was dark, of course, and the sidewalk was uneven with tree roots breaking through. I fell, dislocated my jaw and broke my arm.
I ended up with a big, heavy fiberglass cast. It was a helluva summer. I felt damaged, and worried that I wouldn’t be able to play the piano (for real, not a joke).
BUT here’s the crazy thing in all this, a month before I fell, my younger sister in California had fallen and broken her hip, and was on bed rest. I’d been on the phone with her every other day.
AND our cousin in San Francisco had fallen a month before my sister and broken her leg. The three of us formed a club- we talked daily, which we hadn’t before, and our relationships became closer.
When my cast was removed, I was fascinated by my scar. 
The line, not quite straight, with the little white points on either side from the stitches, and the indentation on the side where the long pin had held the bones in place.
I started to think about getting a tattoo around the scar. I looked at a lot of images, thought about what I wanted, but 18 months later, I still had sensitivity in that area of my arm.
While visiting my sister, we both got small purple hearts, me on the arm that had been broken but on the outside. But I still wanted one on the inside of the arm. A few months later, while getting my hair cut, I looked down at my lap, HA! I have TWO arms and thought, ‘do the tattoo on the other arm’.
I am very happy with this newest tattoo. 
It’s about healing, about being happy, being alive, being aware of all I have to be grateful for, about peace and when I open up to people, they can see it. I love that it wraps around my arm so that people can glimpse it but not see it fully until I extend my arms.
What is this blog about?
Many people spend their lives skimming the surface. It’s habitual: chatting, exchanging pleasantries, repeating the patterns of the day, and yet many of us are also desiring of the meaningful interactions, the deeper connections, the experiences and adventures that leave you with a story to tell. We are cut from the fabric of our parents, our hometowns, our initial experiences. But throughout our lives we sew those pieces together, and it is in the redesign, redirect, reallign, of our lives, and how we choose to tell the story of our lives… that is what weaves our creation myth.
This blog is designed to scratch the surface in order to explore the things that have left a mark, perhaps accidentally, perhaps on purpose. It explores the stories we tell, how we share them, who we tell them to, and how we live and die with them. I believe in the power of story telling. That when one person’s truth is told, than universal truths are discovered that cross race, religion, and age.
This blog, hopefully with your help, is also designed to explore if their is a relationship between how we tattoo and scar our bodies, and how we are tattooing and scarring the planet.
I find the submissions through people I know, people I meet, people I pursue, and hopefully…you. So please, scratch the surface, tell me what lies beneath.
Identifying Marks
Greg is the first person to submit his own story in his own words. He is a talented poet, teacher, and senior editor of Blackbird. He also knows of the some of the best swimming holes to be found in Virginia!
“When I was a small boy I lived in the big city of St. Louis, not far from the shadows of the Anheuser Busch brewery where my father worked as an office boy, delivering mail and running errands. It was the 1950’s, my parents were young and poor, and we lived in a one-bedroom shotgun apartment on a street lined with tall, white-trunked sycamores, still one of my favorite trees. I slept on a small bed that was tucked into the area beneath the stairs leading up to the apartment on the second floor. Like Harry Potter, yeah—him with his famous scar.
One day when I was almost five years old (and pretending to be older), I was out playing with some of my scruffy friends—they were old enough to be in kindergarten and first grade—and we took our usual shortcut through a vacant lot down at the end of our block, a quick way to get to the back alley. Someone had been burning tree limbs and leaves there among the patchy grass and rocky dirt, and had piled it all right on the path that we always took at a run through that lot. That day we paused to look at the ashes and a few still-unburned limbs and logs that were lying there, grey and strange, poking around in them, not realizing that those ashes were concealing still-live embers of the fire. I was a curious and tough little boy, always getting into everything, always wearing out the seat of my pants playing and sliding around on the concrete and in the dirt. As I stood there looking at the ashes, the pants leg of my brand-new Sears Roebuck heavy-duty jeans, which I was wearing for the very first time, caught on fire. Later, my parents would carefully school me in the idea of dropping and rolling to put out such a fire, but at that time I didn’t know what else to do other than what I did, which was to run, screaming that I was on fire. Running with your clothes on fire—the worst thing you can do.
I’ll pause here to say that, even though I was unaware of it at that time, I was an adopted child, and this story may perhaps answer some questions some of you may have about that—or about what it means to be a mother. My mother, an attractive young blond-haired woman named Barbara, the woman who had adopted me, was in the kitchen, ironing in the summer heat with the back door open. When she heard my screams from nearly a block away, she tore out the back door, ran up some stairs to the back yard, leapt over the back fence and came running down the alley towards me. When she saw my pants leg on fire, she took hold of the jeans at my waist and in a single powerful motion she ripped those jeans right off my body and tossed them aside, like some sort of superhero. She grabbed me up in her arms and carried me up the street in my underwear, and both of us remembered later that one of the neighbor women was standing there looking over the back fence, clucking her tongue at a boy appearing in the alley in such a state of undress. My mother took me home and bandaged my badly burned leg, asking me the whole time, what did I think I was doing, walking through the live embers of a still-burning fire? Later, when she pulled the bandage away, it came off with a big chunk of flesh, shocking us both. That area on my leg still has no feeling whatsoever today.
Back in those days before DNA identification, an important way to identify criminals and missing persons (and lost boys) were “identifying marks”—and one of mine is that scar on my leg. If I’m ever in a plane crash or train wreck, that’s one way my body could be identified, and I used to think about that some times. Even now, when I run my fingers over the scar that has no feeling, now with both of my parents dead and gone, I think about all that it tells me about myself, and I’m glad to have it, a mark of identity.
Busy in RVA
There are so many scars and tattoos in Richmond, VA! Today I ran around town interviewing Noah Scalin, Dave Brockie, and Jack of JackGoesForth. I am looking forward to posting their stories, and am posting the pictures on Flickr this evening.
Meanwhile, I recently learned of a new kind of scar. It is a form of branding used in African American Fraternities. I am fascinated, and would love to hear the story of someone who has this kind of scarring.
I’m a fat head
I met Mary a few years ago through friends of friends. She is close to people I hold dear to me, and is a straight talking true southern spit fire. After the story you see below, she told us about another scar she got when she was five while playing, “cocktails” . A true southern belle.
“This scar is from a brain tumor.
The best kind of brain tumor you can have if you’re going to have a brain tumor. They took a circular saw and cut out part of my scull and peeled back the skin in order to remove the tumor. The tumor was growing out of my acoustic nerve, so they had to cut it during surgery. So now I am deaf in my left ear. Speaking of doctors that you hate (referencing Nathan’s comment below), my doctor told me, “Well, since you have such a major hearing loss anyhow, you won’t miss it.” (I had 20% hearing loss before the surgery). But I do miss it. I really miss it.
To fill where the tumor was, they took fat out of my stomach. It was the size of a golf ball. I’m not happy about the divot, but I’m glad not to have the tumor anymore. 
I can’t tell what the scar from my surgery looks like because it is not in my line of vision. But the divot in my stomach reminds me of the brain surgery all of the time. It makes me think I’m a fat head. That was an insult my father used to use all the time…and now it has become literal.
The scars are the map that help me remember the major events that have occurred in my life. “
Forced To Fast For Peace
I went to a potluck of old friends at Raasa’s farmhouse in Ashland, VA. I couldn’t help but pull out the camera and start asking for stories. This crowd had stories about scars. The following bit is Nathan Long’s stories. Odd, after knowing him for 5 years, and living with him, I never think of him as having so many scars. 
Nathan is a talented writer (http://www.failbetter.com/28/LongDevil.php?sexnSrc=Latest), an extraordinary cook, and a lovely person to have around (unless you don’t like puns).
“My scar is from my first drinking story from when I was three months old. I had Pyloric Stenosis, and was projectile vomiting because my lower stomach muscle closed. The Dr.’s had to operate and cut out a section of my stomach. When the Dr. was finished, he handed me to my mother,
which was when she smelled scotch, and believed that he had been drinking. I guess he saw the worried expression on her face, and he said, “No no, I gave it to the baby. A small child can die from anesthesia, so I gave Nathan the scotch.” So that’s the first time I drank.
When I was 20, I saw someone with this same scar, and it was exciting to see that.
When I was twelve I had a bump under my nipple, and so I went to the Dr. to get it removed. He didn’t tell me how it was going to be removed, and I assumed that he was going to cut under the nipple, but he actually cut through it.
I was twelve, in the hospital, and when I pulled off the bandage, and my nipple was all bloody. And I was furious. When we back a few weeks later, the Dr. said oh, (referring to the numbness), you are going to hate me for the next six month, but then it will be over. And I remember thinking, “No. I am going to hate you for the rest of my life.” And I do.
And this is from my ruptured appendix.
It had been ruptured for over two weeks by the time I got to the hospital, I was swollen with infection. They operated, and there was a 50/50 chance of surviving. After the surgery my stomach continued to stay swollen. Even though I hadn’t eaten in three days, the nurses said, “As soon as you poop, we’ll give you food.” And I said, “But I’m not going to poop until you give me food.” And this went on for ten days. Since I knew that they weren’t going to give me food for a while, I thought, “Well, I am already fasting; I might as well fast for a purpose,” and put a sign above my bed that said, “Fasting For Peace.”
Oh and this scar is from a bad novel! (He is referencing the scar beneath his belly button). When I was in the hospital someone brought in the results from the contest for the first sentence for the worst story in the world (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/). It was the first spring at the nuclear winter, we knew because the lawn had just eaten it’s first robin. I was on Demerol, and I started laughing and laughing, until my side split open.
I like scars; I’m glad that they resist (but I could do without the one below my belly button).”
In Process
I have been thinking more than writing about how to make the best use of this blog. In the name of making this a collective and collaborative project, I am going to do something I have always feared to do….I am going to put all of my ideas out there, and am hoping that people will comment and respond to the ideas that resonate with them, and the one’s that don’t. This always makes me a tad nervous as it is my nature to keep my creative ideas private before presenting to the world. However, this is a different kind of project, and i am excited by the opportunities that blogging can bring to the project, and believe in the collective genius.
I am playing more and more with the ideas of how to show the comparison with how we scar and tattoo our bodies with how we scar and tattoo the planet. Graffitti, crop circles, agriculture, mining all come to mind. I am pursuing an aerial photographer to see if he is interested in the concept and wants to collaborate.
Other news is that I am in Virginia visiting family and friends, and so just gathered a bunch of stories. Can’t wait to post! I am planning on visiting a few tattoo shops. If you have suggestions about Richmond, VA tattoo parlors or people in Richmond with scars and tattoos, I’ll be here until next Thursday.In
Change if for the better
Well….I just wrote a ridiculously long piece, and got walayed by the pleasure of putting two stories into one. Do tell if you think it distracts too much from the purpose of the piece, but I felt inclined to over share given that I am asking so many people to tell me their stories.
I was 19 when I tattooed myself. Like a good responsible not-in-the-grunge-culture girl, I waited for over a year until I knew it was not a passing fad or idea, but something I needed, not wanted. The back story is that when I told my parents I was applying to NYU for acting school, they answered with, “Save your time and our money and go find yourself a good acting school.” I did, and was accepted to one of the more prestigious acting schools in NYC. I should have listened carefully when they explained how rare it was to accept someone as young as myself, and that very few people my age had ever made the 80% cut after the fist year. But I was young; filled of confidence, and blind to possibilities that didn’t fit into landscape of my design.
Stetson, my teacher, the one acting teacher who was featured in the book I had read about the school, called me his favorite. And I was. I studied him as much as I studied the technique itself. I hung on his every word, watched his every move, performed as he wanted. In my youth I was malleable, and the acting technique was similar to one I had studied while in high school. The skills of being present, reacting with honestly, and accessing my emotions, were all easy for me.
What wasn’t as easy, was noting the obvious. It was Sandy Meisner’s last year offering classes at the school, and my first time performing in front of him was not only memorable, if I don’t say so myself, it was fabulous. The lesson was on following every instinct. Sandy’s throat had rotted out, I imagine from throat cancer, so he traveled with an interpreter who I nicknamed Santa Clause for his hearty belly and full white beard.
Sandy was small and shriveled, and you never knew if he was smiling or grimacing, but usually he croaked out these mechanical sounds from the hand held machine he held over his throat, and than Santa would interpret the tones into swears and insults that would make or break the dreams of the next generation of aspiring actors.
I was assigned Ben as a partner the day I was to go before Sandy. Ben was like James Dean meet The Fonze meets Elvis. He was Irish, and cute, and wore great jeans. But he couldn’t act his way out of a box and we all knew it. And so did he I guess, which is why he pulled the stunt. We were sitting there on the stage, the customary one prop in place, the bed. I only remember one moment. I was sitting on the bed, and he walked across the room, stood over me, and started to unzip his pants. “Your unzipping your pants.” I said. “I’m unzipping my pants.” He repeated. This was the technique, use the same words, but continue the dialogue. “Your unzipping your pants!” I said, meaning, you idiot, we’re performing in front of a legend, and your doing this crap? “I’m unzipping my pants.” He said. And so it went on back and forth until finally Sandy stopped us. The slur of mechanical insults flew from his mechanical box. I didn’t need the interpreter to understand we were getting reamed. I think he told Ben to get a job and never come back to the school, that he was unfit or unworthy to live. It was New York City. We were in acting school. That was a perfectly acceptable thing to say. And then he turned to me. I’m shocked now that I think about it, that I had the courage to even look up. I remember the blue of his eyes, magnified through his thick glasses. “You.” He said. “You were good.” And that was it. Those were the words that made my day, and I assumed, sealed my fate to be invited to the second year.
My acting teacher continued to say that I was his “favorite” in our class. And I ate it up. Still naive, and oblivious, I missed the banner that was apparently screaming, “Beware! Watch out! Don’t feed into it! Don’t believe the hype!” Because the girls started to talk in the locker room, and as we were changing for ballet, casually asked if I was studying with him….ya know…privately. It was a play on words. On our acting teacher taught private classes for students. But I knew what they meant, I was grossed out. He was like… my fathers age.
They told us they would mail us our letters that determined if we were invited back or rejected two weeks after school ended. I had complete confidence I was going to be invited back. I wasn’t a good dancer, and I rarely practiced my voice work, but I was a good actress, and this was, after all, and acting school. But during the last week of school, Stetson wouldn’t look me in the eye when we passed in the hall.
One week after school ended, I packed my bags, and headed back to VA for the summer.
That moment was coming that I feared the worst, the one where I was about to lose control over my life, that once again, someone was going to make a decision that was going to affect my life in a way that I couldn’t control. Before this past year, I had lived with my parents, who after divorcing when I was two, I moved between for the next 14 years. At the time, I don’t think I knew to the degree of why I needed to take control.
But now, 16 years later, I have a better understanding of what I needed out of that moment. At the time, I just knew that I wanted to claim my future before someone else could. So one week and 4 days after school ended, I got my tattoo. Two Chinese characters on my right hip that meant “change is for the better”. I didn’t know what was going to happen. But no matter what the affect, the influence, the reaction, the potential, the future. Change was going to be for the better.
A few days later two letters came in the mail, the first was the rejection letter saying that I wasn’t invited to attend the second year at neighborhood playhouse. The second was a personal letter from the director, apologizing for not inviting me back. I’ll never fully understand the purpose of that second letter, but it somehow vindicated the rejection.
I had already claimed the transition, the change, as my own. Change is for the better meant that the transition, not staying stagnant, being true to the truth, motion, flexibility, transformation, that this is what I wanted my life to be about. That was the icing on the cake.
Since getting that tattoo, I moved back to NYC and worked off Broadway, (as an extra). After deciding I didn’t want to spend my life speaking other people’s words, I moved to Arizona where I eventually became a wilderness leader. Five years later, I noticed that because I didn’t return to school that second year, I was in the right place at the right time to work on an Everest expedition. I have driven across the country four times, gone six months without sleeping in the same bed more than two times in a row, and guided wilderness trips in Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, and Alaska. I moved to Richmond, Virginia to get a masters degree in social work, where I went on to work as a community organizer. After a run-in with cancer, I recalibrated, and re-remembered that being an artist was not an option. I started my own non profit that utilized the arts for social change, and upon falling in love with documentary filmmaking, moved to Berkeley California, where I started over again. I now work for a large corporate media company, where I sit. All day. And look into the computer. And I look around me, and realize that I am marked. I feel in my being that I am not of these people. The vast majority of the people I work with are in their early 20’s, they hopped out of school, knew what they wanted, and came here. I look at them, and I look back at myself, and realized the only thing I knew how to do at that time was to seek the biggest adventure in life I could possibly imagine. And now, I am at a desk, and I am seeking something else, the core of the soul. I am seeking understanding about the greater elements of what it means to be alive at this time in the world and why I am here. I am continuing to refine and understand what I am here to do, and how to be best prepare myself for that work. I still move every year. Even when I have been in the same city for 5 years, I have moved every year. Sometimes I get tired. I get tired of the part of me that seeks. That moves. That has to build a new garden at every new house. But then there is a part of me that knows that I have picked this life, and tattooed the commitment on my body. This one is not about staying still or staying safe, but rather it is about transition, transformation, and embracing change as for the better.
