The Moon Garden Lounge

For sugaree ... decisions, decisions:





mwp, I loved your post. I think you may find as you get older that some of the self-consciousness starts to rub off. A much older aunt used to tell me that "Forty is prime time" and it turned out she was right. It is not that my nature has changed, but I know and understand myself, and accept myself, much better now than I did 15 years ago. That includes the fact that, like you, I prefer to retain my boundaries.

Plus: "Grackle Got No Boss"! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! Did they have t-shirts? PM me. LOL. ;D

I loved what you wrote about Adam here:

That's what's happening, in part, when Adam performs on a stage--he's dissolving those borders, he is no longer an isolated self-considering brain, but part of a communal experience whose energy he absorbs and returns hundred-fold (an exchange represented of course in the infiniti tattoo).


Which brings me to nikki's post about tattooing. nikki, you summed up far better than I ever could some of my own misgivings about the tattooing phenomenon. Especially this:

It doesn't add up to me. Inflict pain on yourself for even a second to express and declare what you already are? He already is Pan. He already is the water bearer and the ram. He's all those things, and none of them, and much more and much less.


The tattoos, especially the giant slogan on his left arm and now the Pan on the right, do seem to me to state the obvious. More than the earlier tattoos, this Pan one has made me seek out more information about why people do it. Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at McMaster in Ontario, wrote some interesting things about tattoos as a demonstration in self-control, releasing strong emotions in a very external way.

The pain ties in -- experiencing the pain is part of the tattooing as an expression of personal integrity and growth. It means you are the type of person who is willing to be forever changed.

I was trying to think of a generational analogy, since my generation didn't get tattooed. The only thing I can think of is travel -- that was the way that young people released and expressed complex feelings, demonstrated self-control, and so much more. Some did the spring break thing, which became something icky ... others bummed around the country or went abroad, etc., took jobs in faraway cities or lands, worked as couriers, etc. I certainly looked at travel that way when I was young and still do. Every year my life revolves around one "big trip" and hopefully a few small ones.

Here is how I feel stronger and more confident, most authentically me. I mark my life by these trips and what I experience on them. I often find myself on trips saying, "This is how I was meant to live." My trips fall into different periods and types and I like looking back on them and looking ahead to them and planning them. I like to study maps. I always buy jewelry and music on my trips, and I have postcards from my latest ones in my face right now; I only have to shift my eyes to see them.

It seems to me, maybe, that tattooing has taken on some of that meaning for this generation? Adam's in China, for heaven's sake. If I were there, I'd be collecting experiences, not sitting around a tattoo parlor. But maybe for him and countless others, those experiences would be just memories. This way, he has living testimony to this time in his life. He can look down at himself and see it anytime he wants to.

And maybe the pain sets people apart from those who are afraid, just as, say, I had to overcome fears about flying, driving in big cities, and all the other problem solving that comes on a trip of any kind. I know lots of people who never travel and don't see the value in it, and I find myself feeling sorry for them ... feeling a little bit special because of what I've seen.

That's really the only analogy I can think of that I can relate to personally. Which brings me to mahailia's pictures! Moon Garden road trip! Wouldn't that be amazing?