Written on the Body

In the same way that one encounters a word or idea and inevitably hears it or sees it in print within a day or two, I had the experience of seeing - for the first time - a tattoo with a message seemingly intended just for me and, within a couple of days, seeing another one!  And then it seemed like everywhere I looked I was seeing prophetic messages on upper backs and wrists and biceps.

Two of these fleshy billboards, in particular, stood out.  I saw the first while riding my bike.  I noticed the woman riding in front of me had two images tattooed on to the back of her upper thighs and every time we stopped at a red light I looked to figure out just what the images represented.  On her left thigh was a replica of a human heart - all valves and ventricles - and underneath a single word: Realist.  On her right thigh was a mirror image, of sorts, the kind of heart we all know how to draw - a Valentine - and underneath, in cursive script, the word, "Optimist."  The second tattoo I saw was on a woman seated in front of me on the streetcar.  She was wearing a tube top so I had a clear view of the sentence she had etched on to her left shoulder blade: "Change is the result of Awareness coupled with Action."

I don't know why these messages stood out for me except that in them I recognized some kind of Truth.  "Which are you?"  The tattooed hearts seemed to ask: realist or optimist?  Do you see things as they are or as you'd like them to be?  The second tattoo offered straightforward observation; I don't think you can argue that no matter how "aware" one is change doesn't happen without diving in and taking action and without awareness, action is just meaningless movement.

There is much meaning in each of these messages but for me they simply offer further proof of Marshall McLuhan's dictum that the medium is the message, after all.  Our Truths are simply what we decide to embody, what we project to others; those words that would reveal themselves on our skin if our skin could write what we are all about.  In sum: we are what we carry within us - those attitudes and actions that we live, day in, day out, at breakfast, lunch and dinner, through endless months of schlepping to work and lessons and grocery stores.  We are, in essence, messages writ large.  We speak through our bodies, often louder than we do in words.