Tattoos of Home

I’ll be honest, lately I have been struggling with the idea of home at my core. There have been so many pieces of my life up in the air, things that don’t fit anymore, roots that were pulled out forcefully, situations that changed the landscape by moving along like a glacier, slowly enough that I didn’t realize what was changing until the transformation had already occurred.

And me, being the rational person that I am, have been dealing with this rootlessness by a healthy dose of introspection and tattoo therapy. (Okay, maybe real therapy too, but when you just walk in to a tattoo parlor and get ink on a whim it feels pretty much the same as a good talk therapy session.)

Now, the tattoo artist that I had start what will become my sleeve just had a beautiful little human and isn’t opening her books until October, but that is only giving me altogether too much time think about the pieces I want to incorporate into the rest of my sleeve. In this process of thinking about what all my tattoos up until now mean to me, I realized that I want this sleeve to be my connection/reflection on my roots and family. I have daisies on my shoulder for myself (three of them, because three is a consistently important number in my life). But I want to add to that. And thinking about what home is to me has had me remembering how much of my childhood I connect to being outside and exploring with my family. Like well, everyone, my family history even when I was young was complicated. So much of the people I was raised with as family were not blood but chosen, if only for a small part of my life.

When I meet back with my tattoo artist this fall, I want to begin working on a half sleeve that feels like being grounded to me. So far all of my tattoos are either pieces of nature or words that feed me and I plan on continuing that through this sleeve with pieces of the natural world that serve as a map of where I’ve been and where I’m going. That look like reminders of people or situations that left indentations on my skin reflecting who I am now.

So I guess home is a valley filled with yellow bursts of black-eyed susans, welcoming me every time I turn towards the place I’m from.

Home is strawberries in the summer and enjoying the jam from my grandma for the rest of the year, the little square containers of them resting in the corner of the freezer in hopes to last until we can make more when the weather changes.

Home is memories of picking mint leaves at eight years old and squeezing the oils out between my two fingers so the scent stays with me as long as possible.

Home is knowing that sometimes trees have to be cut down to make room for new growth and that growth sometimes has to happen because someone decides to leave without warning.

Tree rings marking the place they decided to leave, the years rooted in place marking the time we had with them.

Home is loving the mountains but appreciating the endless horizon of fields in Indiana.

Home is wherever I’m existing as authentically as I can.

Home is safety that we’ve built for ourselves.

Home is knowing we have somewhere to come back to when we’ve wandered a bit too far.

Finding home has always weighed heavily on me. As you’ve read before, I seem to always be looking for ways to feel grounded while still reaching for the farthest branches. What grounds you? What images resonate in you so much that when you see them, the air shifts and you remember some key piece of your becoming?

I told myself I won’t get another tattoo on a whim until I can get back behind the needle for this sleeve of mine. I can’t wait until October rolls around. Restlessness and recklessness sometimes go hand in hand for me but this sleeve is something that I want to be well planned out. Here’s to this specific work in progress. To continually digging a little deeper in the hopes of finding new roots.

Talk soon.

Rich

It’s been about two months since I officially moved here and it’s amazing to me how quickly it started to feel like home. Whenever I’m driving home at night and I can see the lights of the buildings downtown, it is flooring to me that I am here in this moment. A year ago I couldn’t have guessed that I would have been living in Indy by 2019.

I wrote a lot for myself about what this move would mean for me. What kind of changes I wanted to see myself conquer or experience. What things I wanted to be doing.

I also had a lot of expectations for what living in Indianapolis could actually mean for me. And when I think about it, I tend to have a lot of expectations, even ones that I don’t necessarily give a name to myself, about my life and what I’m supposed to be doing. There are constantly so many thoughts changing in my head about how I want my life to be and who I want to be, but this past year I noticed that my anxious expectations felt like they could be swooping in to sabotage my shifting into who I want to be. Thoughts of how I should be based on the people in my life or where I *thought* I should be in life at this point.

When I moved here I had already started my new full time job at a university here. I had already gotten pretty acquainted with the city thanks to my person living here and moving here a few months before I did. And honestly, somehow the more comfortable I get with this city the more I feel like I can let go of some of those ideas of who I’m supposed to be and focus more on the kind of person I want to be instead.

The great thing is having someone to go on adventures with in this new city. To have people in your life who love you and who are interested in doing some of the same hairbrained things as you is the best, because you end up with the kind of memories that will stick with you. Memories of trying to find the trail we were planning on longboarding at only to realize that once we got past all the construction, it lead us basically right back to where we parked. Memories of shooting video in spring like weather and getting to mess around with Polaroids in the sun with no jackets on the last day of January. Having people with you who are struggling with some of the same things you are, so you can help each other along the way. Letting go of the idea that we are falling behind or running late to try to “be where your feet are”. Its something that I am not good at still, but days like this make me feel like its possible sometimes. And for that, I’m thankful.

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This city makes me feel rich. These memories fill my pockets with joy. These moments are the ones that stick with me and remind me that not all plans have to come to fruition. Sometimes it’s better to just roll with the day and see what happens.

So much has changed, and is changing. Not all of it happy, not all of it sad. It’s hard. And it’s good. But the more I’m here, the more I’m glad that this is the place I get to spend my time in. Setting expectations aside as best I can so I can just exist in the moment how it comes to us. Blue skies or rainy on my windshield.

I hope you’re doing okay, wherever you’re reading this. I hope you try to give yourself a break once in awhile and know that it’s okay if not everything lives up to what you think it is going to. We’re only human, doing the best that we can. A work in progress, right?