Saturday, December 27, 2008

New Day #366

One New Thing I've steadfastly avoided this year was getting a tattoo. It just seemed so unoriginal, so mid-life crisisey. Y'know, 'cuz it is. But now that I've managed to go a year without one, it seemed a fitting way to acknowledge the project on its penultimate day.

So I went to my friend (and fellow Jersey boy) Sage to ink me a simple message for which he's ridiculously overqualified.


When Sage started on the top side of my wrist, the prickling sensation confirmed my guess that I would be one of those people who actually liked the feeling of getting tattooed. That is, until he flipped my arm over and started working on the thin skin on the inside of my wrist. Suffice it to say I now understand why it's the place the suicidal choose to slit.

As for the design, we chose a typewriter font--appropriate for a writer--and a message I thought I'd want to see every day for the rest of my life:

hope dream




It'll take a couple of weeks to heal before it looks right, but this gives you the idea.

There are few things I'd consider grafting onto my body, but I can never be reminded too much to hope and dream. I think Steve Rathje, one of the child actors in my play, put it best in the essay that won him the title of the Most Philosophical Fourth Grader in America. (That's right--in all of America.) The contestants were asked which is stronger--fear or hope. Out of the winners from grades 1-12, Steve was the only one who chose hope.

He wrote: "...hope is like running with the wind at your back."

If my wrists were bigger, I would have tattooed that instead.

5 comments:

Martina said...

Hooray for hope! Have a happy new year, Marc.

Rick Bettencourt said...

Leave it to a child to come up with such a clever line.

Nice tattoo.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to Steve's essay. Very inspiring. Thanks for all the inspiration this year for following your dreams and sharing them with the world at large.Hope you have a Happy New Year filled with much success.

therese patrick, author said...

Margie did an awesome job - encapsulating -a year in the life- of a "brave soul" writer. Great to read this morn! Here's the link for those who don't get the Sunday Oregonian:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/margie_boule/index.ssf?/base/living/1230157511255490.xml&coll=7

Thanks for the link to Steve's essay too. It's amazing he was the only contestant to choose hope but shows why your blog has been inspiring to so many. A daily hope to do something new and fun!

You've proven a writer is not limited by time, what you've written will continue to inspire for years-decades- to come.
Cheers!

Unknown said...

But why did you get it on both sides of your wrist? This seems strange to me.