Tattoo

Yes­ter­day, for not much more than an hour, I toyed with the idea of get­ting a full arm tat­too, appar­ent­ly known as a ‘sleeve.’ I asked for and even­tu­al­ly received the opin­ions of the large num­ber of tat­tooed folks with whom I work.

Believe it, my sleeve would have been awe­some. If I had a full arm tat­too I would make it bio­graph­i­cal [or would that be auto­bio?]. Any­how, the shoul­der would have my con­fir­ma­tion saint, the Archangel Michael on it. I like the col­ors on it and the fact that it looks like a prayer card. St. Michael has always appealed to the mar­tial spir­it with­in me, I guess I can iden­ti­fy with his angel­ic nature. Inci­den­tal­ly, here is The Prayer of St. Michael. Wrapped around this and con­tin­u­ing as a filler between the oth­er tat­toos on the sleeve would be a chain of oak leaves [strength] or olive leaves [peace]. I’d also have a tat­too of a squir­rel and of a bird for my love of nature, but also for curios­i­ty and free­dom. I’d leave a space on the inside of my upper arm for a word [per­haps ‘fam­i­ly’ or an appro­pri­ate line from a poem] because it will be close to my heart.

I’d have Tolkien’s sym­bol near my elbow on my fore­arm. Not only is it cool look­ing, he is my favorite author and has been such an influ­ence on my life for so long he deserves a spot. I’d have a sword on the inside of my fore­arm [for fenc­ing], and beneath its point, at my wrist, the ND mono­gram.
I’d also need some­thing rep­re­sent­ing dis­ci­pline, but I don’t know what a good sym­bol for that would be. Any ideas?

The rea­son I’m not get­ting the sleeve is because, cool though it would be, What is impor­tant is that I know what is impor­tant to me rather than chang­ing my body to dis­play it for oth­ers to see. I do real­ly think it would be cool but doing some­thing because it is cool is no rea­son to do some­thing [if it is per­ma­nent].

Curi­ous­ly, a few peo­ple said they could not see me with a tat­too, or telling peo­ple about it and show­ing it. Oth­ers were encour­ag­ing. Can you see me with a tatt?