Tattoo I - Green Gecko

Let’s talk about tattoos. My pocket watch tattoo was the cause of different discussions this weekend, so I’m thinking of running with a theme this week of tattoos. This may turn out to be a one day theme run, ‘cause frankly I am like a Ritalin-less ADD kid, I lose interest quickly…

I got my first tattoo when I was living in Chico, but I had been talking about getting one for a few years before hand. They weren’t remarkably popular back when I was 19 and my speed freak roommate was flirting with the idea of getting one. I didn’t feel too strongly about it one way or the other, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought what a radical thing to do to your body – permanently inject ink into your skin. The tattooing never happened, life and its dramas kept rolling and caught up and I found myself in Chico.

-Life in Chico was a chaotic, fucking blur. It was filled with blustery, life-expanding days and it was filled with some of my darkest moments, but it is held as this near mythical place where I began to simultaneously find and lose myself.-

One morning, after a particularly heavy acid trip, I was sitting out on the porch, smoking and watching the already hot Central Valley sun come up. Amy wandered out, looking like I felt; like a mangled mix of exhaustion and revelation. We sat there and talked quietly for a couple minutes, she had been unable to sleep due to the closed-eye geometric picture show that was an acid given, and I hadn’t even tried yet. I felt good, I felt ready for something major. We decided now was the time for continuously discussed trip to Portland, but on trying to get Alex out of bed we realized our dreams had once again been dashed. So we headed to the creek.

Big Chico Creek runs through Bidwell Park and is filled with natural swimming holes. It’s not the easiest drive out there, and not the easiest hike once you get there, but it’s a little piece of heaven when you find it. Amy and I sat, mostly naked, in that snow melt in early morning hours that must have already been pushing 85 degrees. It felt like one of those momentous moments when nothing happens. We talked about… Who knows, but we decided we would drive up to Paradise and get tattoos.

A few days later, in a house-turned-tattoo parlor in Paradise, Amy Lou got herself a small green star on the inside of her forearm, something she had always wanted. They mixed the green to her particular specifications, and I was so taken with the color that I used it for mine: a small lizard on my upper right thigh.

I cannot say why, but at the time I had a thing for lizards – geckoes in particular.

The guy shaved the small patch of my leg free of hair, put the stencil down and started. I remember quite clearly thinking that, “yup that hurts, feels like having burning glass scratched along your skin.”

I spent the next day smiling every time I bumped my leg against something and felt the shocking jolt of pain that was a healing tattoo. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that Amy spent the day poking hers from time to time to feel it.