On being tattooed

First off, I will not say, it was not painful. It was painful. This experience, all 2 and a half hours of it, was exquisitely painful. So much so that one has the dreadful privilege of meditating upon the nature of pain; the subject of it, the very manifestation of it, evidenced in that moment of the buzzing machine, the knowledge that where the sound touches your skin, there will be pain.

All my prepared fortitude went flying out the window. The Buddhist chants that put me to sleep without fail, began in my mind clearly, but ended up a jumbled mess. Today I learned of my own pain threshold -- the pathetic level at which the body fails the mind, regardless of preparation! I'm humbled. I have a long way to go.

But I endured, dear reader! And I remember musing half-heartedly about all the difficulties I had been through; how, just like that very moment of physical pain, the time would pass, one would emerge refreshed and reborn, with a glorious artistic scar/outcome to show for it.

Tattoos are a dime a dozen. But your own is always special. I can only describe it as something as deep as the blood in your veins, which at a certain moment, crystallizes into the image you have prepared yourself for. And it appears on your skin! It's the outward manifestation of an inward resolution. It's entirely appropriate that one has to suffer a little for it.

Sort of exhausted, but can't wait to show you. It's so, so beautiful.

x,
betta.