Your words as close to me as my own skin

[asakiyume]

A lot of the inmates at the jail have amazing tattoos on their necks or arms, often swirling words that I mainly can't read because of the loops and flourishes of the design. This past Friday, though, it was one of the corrections officers, one I hadn't met before, who had a really fabulous tattoo.

At first I saw only that it was a lot of words, in different fonts, some of them quite cool (like the font of seventeenth-century books, for instance). Then I saw that it was a series of quotes--I recognized first "I'm nobody! Who are you?" from Emily Dickinson.



"Hey, you have Emily Dickinson on your arm!" I said.

"Yeah," she said with a grin.

"And 'Spiritus Mundi,' from . . . not Shakespeare, it's TS Eliot--no! Yeats," I said, and she nodded.

"But I've got Shakespeare too," she said, and sure enough, she had "All the world's a stage." She also had "Nevermore," and "It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper," which she confirmed came, indeed, from "The Yellow Wallpaper." She told me some of the others, but I forgot them.

"They look really excellent, too," I said, thinking of the spacing, and of the different fonts. "Did you design it yourself?"

She said she did.

Pretty cool. It's not every day you meet a corrections officer with literature embedded in her skin.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. Here's what the jail looks like.



P.S. Later in the day, a guy behind the counter had a tattoo of the state of Massachusetts on his arm, with a star slightly left of center. "You are here," it said under the map. I guess he doesn't travel much?

Comments

[thursdaysisters.livejournal.com]

My friend's uncle is a prison warden in Michigan, he says it's the quietest place on Earth on work. The inmates do a lot of paid metal work so they can leave with a trade, and one time he produced a catalog with all the products you could buy from them. "Wanna a wood stove? This dude can weld your name on the front lickety split."

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sort of training is also good because it's a skill that an ex-offender can establish a business with, if they want, and entrepreneurship has fewer barriers than other sorts of employment, if you've done time.

[thursdaysisters.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah totally agree, most of my homeless clients with any criminal record usually get hy with small engine repair or plumbing, anything where they can keep the tools on their person.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fan of tatts, but that's rather impressive! :o)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I thought you might like the literary angle!

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Those are cool tattoos.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah--people think of some awesome things sometimes.

I wish she'd been sitting across from you on the subway--you would have captured the design way better than I did!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Seriously cool tats!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I wish I could have more accurately shown all the different fonts, and I wish I remembered more of the actual quotes!

[sovay]

"But I've got Shakespeare too," she said, and sure enough, she had "All the world's a stage." She also had "Nevermore," and "It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper," which she confirmed came, indeed, from "The Yellow Wallpaper."

Okay. That is pretty cool.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It was a pretty eclectic collection.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

That is a truly beautiful tattoo! Thank you for describing it in such vivid detail!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Wish I could have done even better--wish I could have remembered more of the quotes!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Maybe it changes when he moves? Have you ever seen him anywhere else?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The big question is, what happens if he moves out of state. Does a whole new state appear? And how about if he moves out of country?

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Probably the local province/state/equivalent. If it's an archipelago, the island he's on. If it's a tiny country like Singapore or Nauru, the entire country.

When traveling over the ocean, it disappears completely.

Nanomachines.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Have you read the Keys to the Kingdom series, by Garth Nix, anything from Drowned Wednesday on? A sorcerer named Dr. Scamandros has tattoos that change and signify his emotions and concerns.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like the idea of tattoos that change! I wanted to do something similar in a story--kinetic tattoos--but I had a case of imagination failure, so it never developed.

[wuweibaby.livejournal.com]

Nice


I've been considering, "EVERYTHING'S FINE!" On my arm :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I've thought of getting one too, but then I get lost trying to decide what it would be. But it would be words, that much I know.

[deponti.livejournal.com]

Tattoos are very intriguing to me, too.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

There's something simultaneously offputting and appealing about the fact that a tattoo is both painful and permanent. It makes it seem very significant.

[core-opsis.livejournal.com]

I've never had any interest in tattoos, and always thought it seemed odd--like what is important or significant at one point in your life very well may not be later, and it's so permanent. It makes me think of the Far Side cartoon (I think it's the Far Side) with a guy with a big burly arm with the tattoo artist tattooing a woman's name, and there's a whole string of other women's names crossed off. But literary quotes....that's really pretty cool.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

As they've become more present in everyday life, I've thought about them more. Conceptually, they intrigue me. I used to think I'd never want one, personally, and now I'm not so sure (it's still highly unlikely I'd get one, though).

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

Your drawing reminded me of an off-the-wall, topical, sometimes shocking, sometimes funny movie called "The Memory of a Killer".

One of those Euro'n movies... He had several probs- he was developing a conscience, and alzheimers.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it was maybe a rather heavy movie? Alzheimers all on its own is pretty heavy, but combining it with remorse/conscience issues….

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

I don't see it likely that I'll ever have a tattoo myself, but there are some that exist that I think are fantastic. All the literature quotes is one of those. Neat!

Also, I'd never heard of "The Yellow Wallpaper." Thanks for cluing me in to its existence.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty creepy horror story! And amazingly modern, though written long ago.

Yeah, literature quotes seem like worthwhile tattoos.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

What if she is made of words, and reading them helps her to be real?

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

(Which is another Keys to the Kingdom thing.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What an intriguing idea.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

I saw some people with cool tattoos today. I'll talk about them in my next entry.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hah! I have your current entry open in a tab but haven't commented yet.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll probably post the next one some time tomorrow, then.

[dudeshoes.livejournal.com]

Find out more? How did she come to pick those tattoos in particular? And what sort of a person is she? How does she feel about her work? About the inmates?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I was curious especially about how she picked the quotes she chose, but I only get to talk to the programs officer (that's the role she was in) when I'm waiting for women to arrive or right before I leave, so it's a limited time period.

She was pretty young (twenties, I'd say); she seemed confident and happy. She was neutral/professional with the women--at least, so it seemed to me: how it seems if you're a prisoner is, of course, another matter.

She was just subbing for someone and so I'm not likely to see her again; she said she doesn't usually work on that floor.