well well well, it's been a couple of weeks since our whirlwind trip Quebec city. It was a great and refreshing getaway, full of good food, wonderful sights and bonhomie.
In the weeks since then, I've had renewed energy and have thrown myself into reading (The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge and The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Marshall), becoming active on a couple of Asperger's forums, getting out in the garden and being as happy as a little clam at work. My cubicle mate got moved, so now I have the whole cube to myself, and am no longer self-conscious about interacting with my clients the way that works best for me. All in all, these are some pretty good days.
Perhaps due to the assessment I had earlier this year (and the subsequent Asperger's diagnosis), I've come to feel that this year already has been pretty eventful. I've discovered new ways of thinking, slightly different ways of interacting with people and expressing myself, and seemingly more successful ways of managing problems. In the past I'd call each of these mini-triumphs an epiphany, but this all has been much more than just an epiphany...it feels more like a convergence of epiphanies.
To celebrate all of this, I went out and got a tattoo today. I had originally wanted an enso tattoo in white ink on my palm, but most tattoo artists flat out won't do palms, and many won't do white tattoos. I found a lady who suggested we do it in black, and then successfully talked me out of doing it on my palm (this is apparently a terribly painful place to get a tattoo, and is the optimal site for infection and other problems). We ended up doing a white enso on my right wrist, and you know, it didn't really hurt much. I think I could have handled the painon my palm, but she's probably right, being unable to fully use my right hand for a month might have become a bit of a hassle.
The enso can be said to represent any number of things, depending on who you ask or what you read. It can represent enlightenment, rebirth, the cosmos, the void, the cyclical nature of life. To me, it looks like a representation of change over time, as the brush loses ink and the brush stroke tapers off. The act of painting enso is sometimes used as mindfulness practice, where each enso is a one-off, representing the energy of the moment of its creation. No other enso drawn will ever be the same. During my reading I came across the idea of wabi-sabi, the belief that nothing is permanent, complete or perfect. The white ink is likely not going to be permanent; for me, this is part of the appeal. It made sense to me to get a tattoo (itself a symbol of permanence) that will eventually fade and become a scar over the years.
At the moment the tattoo looks like I was bitten on the arm by a rabid child (it is only 7 hours old), but I will post a picture at some point. :)
1 comment:
That's an excellent story. i've wanted a tattoo for quite a while, but have never come up with anything I wanted badly enough to have etched on me forever. Your choice suits you perfectly.
I've only seen two people with tattoos on their palms -- one's a business reporter who was at 680, is now on BNN .. his looked not-great and was a mystery. The other is chef Lynn Crawford, who has "two small black labyrinths, the size of coins, on the palms of both hands". Not for the faint of heart, I hear.
Good for you!
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