I didn't know too many people with tattoos in college; I don't know if it was a generational thing (it seems like every college student today has tattoos), or if I just happened to know people who were kind of prudish about that sort of thing. Because of this lack of tattooed friends, I didn't really have anyone I felt comfortable asking about the tattoo process.
So, I carried around my print-out in my wallet, for several years.
I turned 25 in June 2001. I happened to be in Vancouver for that birthday. I was in an odd transit from the place I had called home for seven years, Michigan; to the place I would call home for 8 years, the San Francisco Bay Area. The transit included driving to Oakland, flying to Vancouver, staying there for a month, then 6 weeks in Massachusetts, 2 weeks in Baltimore, then back to the Bay Area.
In Vancouver, I was taking a class, and met some cool people. At some point, I let it slip at that I always wanted to get a tattoo; I told them about the print-out in my wallet, and that was it - one of them immediately told me I had to go to "the best place to get a tattoo in Vancouver". She said she expected to hear back from me about it by the next time we had class, otherwise she would drag me there herself.
I went to the tattoo place the day after my 25th birthday. The guy working there had that stereotypical tattoo artist look, with the big loops in his ears that had stretched out his earlobes, a few tattoos, a shaved head, and he was really skinny; he was a really cool guy. He looked at my print-out, said he had a better one in the back (it was much better than the copy I had been carrying around for several years), and wanted to make sure I wanted to go through with it. I set an appointment for the next week, when I got this.....
Gye Nyame, means, literally, "take God", or "God is great". I've never taken the literal meaning to heart. To me Gye Nyame means be humble, there is something out there more powerful than you. I like my meaning, and I've tried to live by it.In 2006, I turned 30. I had been itching to get another tattoo, another Adinkra symbol. This time I wanted to get a Kwatakye Atiko, a symbol for bravery and valor. I had been having a number of problems with my ankle that year, a recurring injury from soccer. I played through the injury time and time again, aggravating the injury on, at least, a weekly basis. I decided to get the tattoo just above that troublesome ankle. I was in San Jose at this point, and the tattoo artist I went to was no where near as nice as the guy in Vancouver, but he was good, and I got this....
Yesterday, I got my third tattoo. This tattoo means more than either of the previous two did, but I wish I wasn't getting this tattoo. I'm getting this tattoo in honor of my mother.Last Christmas, with mother's health beginning to fail her, my younger sister, Emily, decided to get a set of necklaces for the women who are direct descendants of my mother. She got 5; one for each of my sisters, one for each of my nieces, and one for my mother. It had a design on it that looked pretty simple and I asked what it was. She told me it was a Tabono, an Adinkra symbol I had never heard of; a symbol of strength, confidence, and persistence.
When my mother died, I knew I had to get a tattoo of the Tabono, because, in my eyes, my mother was one of the strongest, confident, and persistent people I know (she might have been a little too persistent about some things, to be honest). I told Emily about this, and yesterday, on the day when Ghana beat the USA in the world cup, we got similar, but not identical, tattoos.
I don't know if this will be my last tattoo, but I would like to think it is. I would like to think the last tattoo I get is the most meaningful, not one that I got because of an itch I had, or one I carried around on a ratty piece of paper in my wallet for several years.
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