in living colour

I was a different person when I woke up this morning than I was on Saturday. More myself than I have ever been, I think. The physical difference? Minor. A few millilitres of ink, maybe. A light scab, perhaps. (More like sunburn, really). Marked. Branded. Both words better than: defaced.

Because that’s not really the truth. I’ve carried the design around with me for nearly seven years, across the prairies, through the Northernmost states, around the Golden Horseshoe, to Canada’s capital. The heliotrope flyer it was drawn on the back of at one point littered the U of R campus with an invitation to hear the veritable Marilyn Waring lecture on Valuing Women’s Work. (Ahh, the heady days of post-secondary radical feminism. So much more tranquilized than the suburban reality, with a baby and a dog and a man that brings home the bacon and the nipples-on-demand and the pooping scooping and the laundry that are the consequence of each.) Depending if you believe that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or if it is in-your-face plagiarism, I am either paying Melissa who used to sit in front of me in Grade 12 Calculus a huge compliment, or I am breaching her intellectual property rights. Sitting in some greasy spoon on the Island, the memory of Melissa's ivy of ink running down the back of her neck inspired the sketch on a napkin that I pulled together for KP, who only minutes earlier mused, “Maybe I should get a tattoo in Victoria while we’re there.” We had nothing else to do; we only decided that the capital of Canada’s grooviest province would be a pit stop on our road trip through the mountains the night before we got there. “How about this?” I enthused as I began to doodle, but not before passing the cream and sugar. “It’s kinda like the one that girl Melissa has on the back of her neck. Remember her? From Grade 12 Calculus? I drew one for myself with my initials in it. Your initials are in this one. See? K and P. Right there.”

I would have gotten inked with her that day, only my own baby was fermenting in a container somewhere in Regina, waiting for its debut this past Saturday, seven years after it was born. Besides, I had already suffered through ink and needles that spring with J. in Calgary at the Smiling Buddha. With tatts you have to pace yourself, because they really are addictive. (I already know what my next one will be; I just have to let it simmer for a while before it can be served.) They have to mean something special, and reflect well the change on the inside that had to take place before the change on the outside could be realized.

Seven years. I don’t know how much a seven year old wine costs, but I bet it would be a good vintage. (Paired well with salmon, and an assortment of in season vegetables, no doubt.) Seven years. It was high time to uncork my own initials. Let them breathe.

(By the way, sorry mom.)