Tattoo #5 (Live to the Point of Tears; under Egyptian Angel)

Albert Camus, the famous French writer who was also famous for his Absurdist translations of man after World War II wrote many beautiful and poignant things I could have chose to etch onto my body, but at the core of his most nihilistic views, he did believe that man should ‘live to the point of tears.’ For me, it has always meant both the joyful and sorrow filled tears. Soak them all up and all the stories and people they most undoubtedly infuse.

Tattoo #6 (T.S. Eliot Poem, left ribs)

This speaks for itself. It is for the love of music and life for which I decided to put this on my ribs. It is a paragraph from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Four Quarters.”

For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts.

Tattoo #7 (Sparrows with writing; left inside arm below elbow)

There is a history with Sparrows and tattoos. Sparrows have come to represent many things to many different people. For sailors, it represents 50,000 nautical miles traveled. In some gangs it means being released from prison, a sense of freedom. Sparrows have also come to mean finding one’s soul mate. When a sparrow mates, it mates for life with the same bird. Now, I’ve never sailed the high waters of any ocean, nor been incarcerated to my knowledge, and recent blind dates would suggest an ugly outcome for any soul mate coming down the pike soon, but for me they represented a coming of age.

For one, they were my first color. Secondly, it’s the first time I dipped below the elbow and said Fuck it to any passerby’s that may judge based on not being able to visibly cover all my tattoo with a short sleeve shirt anymore. So in a way, they brought a sense of adventure, entitlement and freedom. Between their beaks they are carrying a scroll that reads “I want t o spend the rest of my life…”

That sentence right there probably nets more questions than any of my other tats combined. It’s a line from an Auden poem. To be completely honest, I don’t want to share how I would end the sentence because I think it changes constantly and is one secret that I can take with me always. I like being an open book for the most part but I do also believe that every person should carry with him or herself a little secret that only they can share or define within themselves.