Home Tattooing/Desiderata
A few weeks ago I had a new tattoo done. Differently to my previous ones this particular one was done in the comfort of my own home. It was a strange experience but I loved it. I was lucky enough to meet an artist through a friend of a friend on a friday night and by sunday I was lying on my couch with a needle on my chest. He did a great job. We listened to The National, drank lemonade and discussed life. He was an incredible guy with some great stories.
The one that stuck with me the most was a story about how he let his 11 year old son tattoo him for his birthday present. Needless to say the tattoo is far from technically brilliant, but for me it was beautiful. People always go on about the regret of having tattoos and I always disagree. If you do it right, you’ll never regret it. For me its something I can look back on and remember an exact period of my life, a period that for whatever reason I want to remember. Im sure by the time I hit 80 my tattoos wont look great, but I don’t care. Hopefully they’ll just be accounts of stories I can share with my grandkids.
The tattoo I had done is the opening line to Desiderata…it reads as follows:
‘Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence’
The whole thing looks like this:
As a kid I remember it hanging in my grandparents hallway, it was pretty much the first thing you saw as you walked into their house, along with the flowery carpets and constant smell of smoke or marmalade that my grandad would make.
It reminds me of my gran, of which a few songs are based on. Celia. She was never religious as such, yet she was open to the idea of a greater power and she was genuinely just a good person. A person I always and still do look up to as a role model.
The last time I saw her was the night before she passed away, I went to visit her on the way to a gig I was playing with my first band. I was nervous about the show and she said ‘Dont worry, you’ll be great. As long as you do the best you can thats all anyone can ask. Good luck’
Its strange because thinking back, I think if she knew that was the last time we’d speak she would have probably said something very similar.
Anyway, if she knew I went on to have it tattooed on my chest she may not be so happy, so incase I am massively wrong and there is a heaven after all and we meet again, I’ll remember to do my top button up.
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