loving, learning, experiencing...

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

....

whatever life you wear

it will become you

....

somewhere i have never travelled

...

I've been thinking for a long time of getting a tattoo.
Nic is, as well. We've mentioned the idea of doing 'wedding tattoos'. Not tattoos of love, or wedding rings or anything, just the act of going, together, and getting it done, sometime before our wedding.
But I'm always stumped for ideas.
For a long time I was going to have a version of Mallei on my ankle, but I'm not so sure about that.
Then, when I was trying to break free from my last relationship (without knowing it), and took off by myself to Europe for 5 weeks, I came back thinking I would get the latin words: Alis Volat Propriis - she flies with her own wings. Which, at the time, probably would have been insanely appropriate to that time in my life, and would have been a great 'marker' of my strength and independance to do it alone. But, the time passed, Nic came along, and I became sickeningly co-dependant. Which isn't a bad thing! I just don't feel those words apply as they once did.
I've also considered some wolf/eagle variation, those being 'my animals'- the two which I have adored my whole life, that I've felt power and strength from. Ask Nic - I get stupidely excited when I see eagles.

I think this photo is testament to that fact. We saw this bald eagle building a nest on the trip - she was the first eagle we'd seen, and we pulled over to the very narrow shoulder of the road and I stalked her with the camera until she flew back. I still missed getting a photo, but here she is, in her nest anyway.

But even then I'm kind of meh. I mean, I've seen plenty of eagles, but the only real lives wolves I've seen have been either at a zoo, in Poland, or pretend wolves in Squamish:

The actual photo quality of both these photos is much better than shown here, however as I'm at work, I've had to take the photo from my phone, pretend to edit it in the photoshop app, upload it via the mobile to flickr, then put the flickr address across to here. I can't imagine with that kind of abuse, that the photo would retain its quality.



So, all that being said, I can't proclaim to be some great wolf-lover. What if I actually met some and got to know them (I'm picturing some sort of pseudo-tea-party now, with snarly wolves) and decided they weren't actually all that awesome? Then I'd look the fool. (I just googled "Wolf tea-party" and guess what? I got nothing resembling the image in my head. Why I thought anybody else would have had the same deranged thinking as me is bizzare. This also applies to my surprise when I googled "Are tigers soft?" the other day in an attempt to win an argument. Nobody had asked the question, and nobody had the answer.)

Which brings me to what-I-think-might-be-a-good-idea-after-all...

And that is words.

Because I love words. I love poetry, though I don't write it any more (always been the case. Sad = Poetry. Happy = No poetry). I love song lyrics, even though I don't 'listen' to them. Which means, I know them, and Nic says I sing along with every song on the radio, ever. But I couldn't tell you what they're singing about- I don't dissect the lyrics. When I do, I'm usually pleasantly surprised and quite like what they've written. I've been an avid reader most of my life, and I used to write. A lot. Life gets in the way of that, but it's ok.

So I thought: Yes! A literary tattoo! Words! On me! Forever!

But what to get?

I've scoured the internet a few times now and seen about a hundred

i carry your heart

(i carry it in my heart)

tattoos, and I'm too concerned about 'love' tattoos to get one... and then there's nice things- I saw one that said: i climb the tree to see the world or something, with a nice drawing of a tree, and it was a Cinematic Orchestra song, I think, and it was nice. But... those words don't mean much to me. And I can make meaning out of a lot of things.

I think I'd like something that is constantly challenging and reminding me to keep exploring, keep being curious, keep adventuring. I like the last 2 I posted up there. They're both e.e. cummings quotes. Keep in mind these are generally passing fads, and more just a marker for the 'idea' that I like, rather than, perhaps, the quote itself. I'll put them here again incase you missed them them the first time.

whatever life you wear

it will become you

....
somewhere i have never travelled

The first one, is for me, a reminder that life is what you make of it. If you chose/wear/live an ordinary life, then that is what it will become, and what you become... if you wear/choose/whatever an extraordinary life... well.. you get the picture.

The second one... fairly self-explanatory. A reminder to keep going places we/I have never been, see things I've never seen. It's very simple, but I think could be a good reminder. Maybe.

I don't know, this tattoo thing is always changing. When I found Alis volat propriis, I thought YES! And it was going to be awesome. And then life, as it so often does, changed, and it didn't make sense to have that any more. I think if I had gotten it, I would be happy with it still, but it wouldn't make sense to get it now. It's a matter of finding something that accurately represents the time I'm in which, even if that isn't everlasting, will still be a reminder of the awesomeness-that-was.

Anybody reading have tattoos? Any words of wisdom you'd like to share? Ideas? Thoughts?!