Tattoos or not tattoos ?

I am fond of tattoos and indeed I have a few.

I dislike whenever people judge me because of a tattoo. I am not a gangster, a biker, a legionnaire, or even a rock’n roll star, nor even a movie star !

I do know that it was fashionable to get a tattoo and most of them were ethnic, dolphin or sun ones some years ago.

I never thought about my tattoos as a fashionable sign but as ornament on my body.

I rather dislike tattoos on arms, hands, tights and chests, at least, for women. I am an obsessive about foot. I have mine down there and I pretty enjoy looking to them daily. They are not familiar to everyone and hardly visible to anyone.

As it is ornament for me, I got very personal sings, names or designs on my ankles and feet. They are from my own sketching and imagination.

I have four and I probably won’t have another added on that part of my body. I think that I’m done with tattoos. I got them done on specific occasions, wondering about each of them for months. I didn’t want to get a standard or even unexciting one. I needed to get my own signification and drawing.

The first thing I had to find was a tattoo artist. It was not a cup of cake indeed. I had to walk around for months and talked at many before choosing one I fancied the most. He was not nicer than others, not even kind to me on the first appointment (he was yelling like mad at a client when I came in his shop), but he understood me and my vision on tattoos.

I was quite young and I think that he might have thought that I just wanted to get one to be alike my mates, but the fact that I had sketched my own tattoos and explained him the meaning of each, convinced him to do the job.

So, I went on an early afternoon for 2 hours of work. He was late and I thought that he won’t be able to create mines on that particular day. I was sure of myself and when we came in the shop he was a bit nicer to me and really explained me all the process (cream, healing, etc).

I had no interrogation toward my will to get a tattoo (well, obviously 2 on that day), but I knew what I didn’t want.

So, he started to work on the drawing I had done and did the tattoo directly on my skin without any kind of preparation. I let him free to do it without interfering apart from the localization and the directive line.

I didn’t feel that much. I don’t know why indeed. Everyone had told me how painful it might be, but apart from a little tickle, I didn’t feel anything.

I do remember when I came out and walked down the street with my tattoos protected by wound dressings. I was so proud of myself. So happy.

I guess that I have looked to them for more than an hour, knowing that they will remain on me forever. I knew that they had to be on me. It was obvious that they were made for me.

Writing this post may request me to enlighten the meaning of my tattoos… oh, well, I don’t know… 

Must I ?

All I can say is that the 2 first I’ve done are after 2 people whom died too young and whom I was fan of.  Here are 2 photos of my very first tattoos (the quality of the photos is purposely low !).

The first one is dedicated to Kristen Erin Taylor (ket) with a daisy (her favorite flower) whom I do miss a lot and the second one is after River Phoenix (American actor and my personal hero), whose name is fully tattooed around my ankle : River Jude Phoenix – Bottom (his real name).

The 2 others are after my grandparents (their names, stars and russian sentence) and someone I’ve been missing daily since early 90’s (A butterfly hiding his name).

The main question could be : Am I going to get another tattoo ? I do think so. No rush about that either. The only part of my body I could ultimately tattoo is my inner wrist.

Nevertheless, honestly, I don’t have any clue of a specific drawing to do. I am fond of tattoo because it marks me forever and that if I ever lose my mind, memories or even got lost somewhere, I could be able to hang on to them and follow their paths back to my life and souvenirs.

That’s the reason why I tattooed myself, not to forget some people I loved and that I regret daily not to have around.

Some put photos on the wall, some pray daily for their souls, others don’t care, I care and remember in my own way…

As some sing “I did it my way !”.