Is That a Tattoo?

Living in a world of body ink

A few days ago, my younger son was leaving a local grocery store, his cart full of food. He opened the trunk of his car in the lot and a 50-something gentleman, pushing his own cart, arrived at the auto in the next space. They loaded their respective trunks without much notice, until the man broke the silence.

“Excuse me,” he said to my son, “can I ask you a rather odd question?”

My son agreed.

“I see your tattoos and piercings. Do you think people judge you, or look at your differently?”

My son frequently wears shorts, even on a cold day. So, the man could easily see his legs dotted with a number of tattoos. On his arms there are others, one is of a large sage leaf on the inside of his elbow. His daughter’s name is Saige. He has pierced ears and usually wears rather large rings.

My son answered thoughtfully. “Not openly, necessarily, but I can feel people looking, kind of dissecting me at times, yeah.”

The man explained that his daughter had moved out to the West Coast. She’s made new friends, has new influences. She’s getting tattoos, he said. And that’s just not part of my makeup, my world, not what I’m used to, he continued. “My daughter is beautiful without the ink.”

My son said he understood. but explained how tattoos today are different than generations ago when Navy seaman and Hells Angels were the only ones being inked up.

“Now we have Pinterest girls getting the infinity symbol on their wrists.”

The man laughed. “My daughter has an infinity symbol.” He opened his phone and showed my son photos of his daughter and her tattoos. “I worry that she’s adding things to herself when she’s wonderful just as she is.”

“But it’s really not about adding,” my son said. “I think tattoos, at least for me, are about revealing your real self. They’re about peeling back layers, allowing your honest, authentic self to come out, you know?”

The man smiled. He had never thought about it that way.

Tattoos emerged in the 1800s and considered a sign of being a criminal or a deviant. Today, they are commonplace. According to one recent survey, nearly 40 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 have at least one tattoo.

But why?

A group of psychologists in South Africa recently conducted a study and found the primary motivation for those who got a tattoo had to do with its personal meaning, a symbol of a particular accomplishment or of overcoming a struggle. Some had tattoos that reminded them of passed loved ones. Others believed that their tattoos were an extension or expression of who they are, as if the tattoos told a story, a very personal one. Psychologists also found that people who feel good about who they are more likely to want to express that through their appearance, and tattoos can do that. They are a window to the psyche.

A few years ago, I got my one and only tattoo. It’s a simple date—11-21—on the inside of my upper arm. I share a birthday (November 21) with my son, the one with all the tattoos, and together we got the matching ink. And like the psychologists’ study suggests, that date has great meaning to me. But I understand. Tattoos, no matter the art or the significance, are not for everyone.

Still, it’s beautiful to think that two strangers talked openly for some ten minutes in a grocery store parking lot, sharing photos of their daughters, the meanings behind all the collective ink, and how expressing oneself honestly can open up one’s emotional world. They left that evening with smiles on their faces, a newfound understanding, and great wishes for their respective daughters, ink or not.

It was Sylvia Plath who once wrote, “Wear your heart on your skin in this life.”

And why not.

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Photo: Ethem Kartal