Once upon a time, in the early 80's in San Francisco, I was a punk rock chick living in the Mission District. I shaved the sides of my head, but I didn't have a skinny little mohawk 'do because I worked as a paralegal and had to pass as a straight grunt during the day. I had been trying for years to look tough and cool without looking completely alternative. Piercings were not attractive to me, although I had each ear pierced three times (and in some circles, this was enough to make me tough and cool). I hung out with a lot of bands, and got to thinking about tattoos as fine art and symbolism instead of simple coolness.
I woke up one morning and decided to get a tattoo. I sat down and designed a fire salamander in the center of the sun. I wanted to put it on a particular spot on my back, high up where it could be easily seen without disrobing. And I knew that I wanted to do this because I was an Everygirl, an ordinary, blobby, white, suburban chick with absolutely no distinguishing features and nothing to mark me as tied to my body. I wanted to live inside my form and not entirely in my head. I wanted to customize my body so that it could only be mine, and not some other ordinary, blobby, white, suburban chick.
Did I ever mention I was raised as a Christian Scientist? They can't match JWs or Mormons or numerous others for weirdness, but they value metaphysics over solid information on how to get through this life. I felt incredibly disassociated from my own body until I got tattooed. I had Erno, then just departed from Lyle Tuttle's studio, do my first tattoo the day after I designed it. And it was a transcendent experience. The minor pain was wholly worth the result. I felt grounded, and raised above myself all at once.
I still feel that way. I love my tattoos. The salamander is now 12 years old; the orcas encircling my ankle are 11 years old. Something inside me felt I needed to modify my body in order to accept it. It really worked. I feel beautiful, and special, and completely here.