maribou has the delightful habit of sending me books for no reason whatsoever. (I don't think I've sent her anything heftier than a postcard.) Furthermore, her book selection is always dead-accurate, and she's never sent the same type of book twice. Once a book about ravens, another time a collection of science fiction stories by Connie Willis, this time a book called Seven Tattoos: A Memoir In The Flesh.
Seven chapters, one for each tattoo. For each tattoo, the author juggles several threads, twined about eachother like smoke - he describes getting the tattoo, and the events leading up to it, in paralell with his childhood, film noir, whatever fits, a smoldering tapestry of ink and color.
I don't know if I've ever felt so inspired in my life. My tattoos all mark things I've learned, things so important I wanted them permanently inked in my flesh, my personal reality, my truth, bound to me for as long as I live.
Tempting thing to write about, really, philosophy and experience and faith and despair. What I've learned, and what I haven't. The way fingertips feel on my inked wrist (I'm one of those people who happens to be allergic to tattoo ink, and every dot of ink, when it heals, leaves the skin supersensitive beneath it), or traveling in Nicaragua with a just-barely-healed tattoo, or maribou herself, the first and last time I saw her in person, giving me a little more than three dollars in shiny quarters, "for your wings".
Hm. Thank you, maribou... if nothing else, for a lot to think about.