Frivolous Body Art

   Just the other evening my dear, old (in reference to the friendship itself not her age), gal pal and I were chit-chatting about tattoos while in my family jacuzzi-- where I find a lot of good conversation is born.  Throughout the talk we giggled at girls we knew that got  meaningless hearts or butterflies, among other nonsensical, pointless doodles thrown upon their very skin.  And their reasoning?  Because it's cute. Well Duh. I stand opposed.   


   I believe in art and I believe in beauty and I believe in poetry, and absolutely the intermingling of the three.  I also strongly believe tattoos are one of this culture's neatest, most intense, (supposedly) passionate forms of art.  For a person to take a statement, whether it be a portrait, or symbol, or phrase, or what-have-you, and ink it-- with some assistance from a trained professional-- onto their very being is such an immense artistic move.  People are walking around everyday with their bodies' as canvases.  Beautiful!  And just as Monet had a thing or two to say about each of his paintings, tattoos have (or should have) essays upon novels upon numerous factoids of information just about bursting to be told about the art's model.  Art has meaning, art is not "just cute".  So if you get a lame tattoo at least make-up some meaning for it and slap it on at your earliest convenience.  


   I, myself have a little piece of art on my body, and no I promise I didn't make-up a false meaning for the thing.

   I could potentially write a thesis paper on this bit of ink gracing my lower, right back...but I'll spare you and provide just a nice overview. 

   I was diagnosed with cancer in my freshman year of high school, which consisted of a four pound cancerous tumor commandeering one of my kidneys-- the right side, hence the location.  Now at the age of 18, I can obviously say I was "saved" (get it? A life preserver? eeh? eeeeh?), from my disease.  I was saved by so many people, good people.  The entire oncology team I worked with, at both UCLA hospital and Cottage hospital were so good to me; including every nurse and surgeon involved.  My community was just darling and helped my family out immensely what with meals and nice wishes and cards and gifts and love, love, love!  I was saved by other fellow cancer patients I met that shared their journey with me absolutely filling me to the brim with hope and passion for this world.  Mostly, the tattoo is a constant reminder to have faith in humanity, especially in a world where all the bad may at times seem to completely devour the good.  Though, I am living proof that there are indeed good, swell folks out there that will save you if given the chance.   

Passionately,

Kelsey Jean