I’ve always been attracted to tattoos. I’m not exactly sure why, but for as long as I can remember I’ve gazed upon the artwork permanently etched upon people’s skin in awe and amazement.

Actually, it wasn’t always in awe and amazement. There was a time that I looked at them in utter terror and shock. Since I lived in Nicaragua until I was eleven, I pretty much regarded tattoos with contempt, which is, for the most part, the way Nicaraguan society views them. I would look at the blurry, fading blue marks on the biceps of beefy-looking men in the street and think, “Yuck, that is so ugly! The color isn’t even pretty! Why would anyone want to do that to their skin?” These men permanently sported some of the roughest, most scandalous figures I had ever seen, which, in my young, innocent, impressionable mind, translated to “I’m an insane, homicidal rapist, and I will run after you the second you let go of your mommy’s hand.” Which is a pretty wild, paranoid thought to cross a ten-year-old’s mind.

So what changed? How did I go from cringing fearfully at tattoos to oh’ing and ah’ing at them in sheer admiration?

Simply put, we moved to Canada. I was eleven years old, still young, still innocent, still impressionable, and being faced with something unlike anything else I had ever seen before: the youth of the city of Toronto. A girl with around ten piercings in each ear and a nose ring knelt on the sidewalk by the park with a relaxed expression on her face, her stained, multicolored fingers working tirelessly with sidewalk chalk, adding the finishing touches to what I can only describe as one of the most beautiful works of art I had ever seen. Teenagers dressed all in black grinned as they unabashedly held up signs emblazoned with phrases such as “SEX! Now that I’ve got your attention, can you please spare some change?” Three guys stood outside the library, their multiple bits of jewelry glinting in the sun as I gawked at them in amazement, trying to figure out how they’d come up with such original piercing ideas (my sheltered mind’s concept of a badass location for a piercing was the bellybutton. I had absolutely no idea what snakebites and septum piercings were, and I would remain blissfully unaware of the existence of nipple rings for a very long time). Through the window of a coffee shop a bright flash of color caught my eye, and I stared, fascinated, as a boy pedaled briskly through the crowd, unstyled hot pink mohawk blowing in the wind.