Day: April 16, 2013

This is not a news site, and I have nothing to add to the great machine spitting out news and not news every second everywhere. But I am thinking a lot about the Marathon. And I had a dream about it and I wanted to share it.

I grew up around Boston and lived there for awhile and and saw a number of Marathons as a child and an adult. The Marathon was part of a great Spring coming out for that city, a festival more than a sporting event. Everybody in Boston went at one time or another.  There was a parade, a Red Sox game, talks and readings near the Old North Church, picnics on the Charles. It is an intensely Democratic kind of event, for more than 100 years the very antithesis of the Corporate, Tail-Gaiting, Pontificating, Commercialized Chicken Wing Fest and  Advertising Overkill that is called the Super Bowl.

Only a few runners have a chance of winning, but many thousands enter, old people, people in wheelchairs, foreigners, aging athletes, old ladies, runners and strivers from all over the world,  all cheered out by the hundreds of thousands of people who line the route, hand out water, cheer them on. For some, the Marathon is a sporting event, but for most it is a chance to show what determination and heart mean.

And it’s free. Is there any other kind of sporting event like that in our corporatized world? I was away in Vermont, just turned the Ipad on to check my e-mail and was bombarded with Facebook notifications, alerts and gongs. I saw that  something was up and looked at the news and like so many of you, my heart just sank. I didn’t sleep much, but when I did, I dreamed about the Marathon I knew, and then I had this dream about next year’s Marathon. It was a sweet dream, an uplifting dream.

My dream is simple.

That at every press conference, every leader, spurred on by millions of people,  decided that the Marathon be preserved for 2014. That is not be turned over to security people in their specialized units, that it not be only about revenge, new security procedures, insurance regulations, posturing politicians, legislators seeking favor,  lawsuits, Homeland Security issuing alerts. In my dream, we didn’t let the lawyers and the underwriters and security bureaucrats do to us what they did after 911 and let this most innocent and inclusive of things, this spirit of a place, be walled up and searched, carded and monitored, videod and regulated, unnerved and humiliated, cannibalized by the Fear and Security Machine, two of our greatest growth industries.

What a sweet dream, that  we all decided to make the bravest and most powerful kind of statement to the world that there is, which is that we are an open and free people who cannot be frightened and warned out of our way of life, and we will all do what we need to do to keep things like the Marathon part of our collective culture and soul, even if means lining the whole 26 mile route with people, soldiers, volunteers standing arm-in-arm to keep the runners safe and to remind the world what strength really is. I’ll go.

In my dream, we all decided to win a war like this not only with soldiers and wars and drones and commandos but with spirit and a collective determination that bombs cannot kill free will. In my dream, our leaders did compete with one another to exploit death and fear. Instead of frightening us, they reassured us, and urged us to remember the values we cherish the most. They helped inspire us to keep the things we most love about our country, that make us a light to the world when we are at our best. Like taking our shoes off only when we want to, moving freely throughout our world and coming together in great festivals of affirmation.  I would love to volunteer in a war like that, that would get me off of my farm and running to Boston in a heartbeat.

In my dream of 2014, hundreds of thousands, no millions of people, lined the Marathon route, cheering on the thousands of runners, hold up candles and photos in remembrance of the people who died and were hurt and showing the world that their suffering would be honored as well as mourned.

I woke up from my dream and looked  at the news. Was my dream already shattered?

I went to see Alexander Lawrence –  “Alex” – at Mountainside Tattoos in Bellows Falls, Vt. today to get my third tattoo, a Swallow tattoo with a quote from Mary Oliver that was read at our wedding – it reads “put your lips to the world and live your life.” My motto, I suppose. My other tattoos both have “Maria themes.” Alex did the second one last year, much smaller than this one.  I wanted this one to be different. I loved the Swallow Tattoo idea. The Swallow tattoos are among the most meaningful and symbolic of all tattoos, popular for centuries among sailors who got them to signify trust, and having sailed a lot of miles, come a long way. I think it is perfect for me at this point in my life. After talking with me, he said it fit.

Alex suggested the Swallow tattoo (below) and showed me a bunch of computer mock-ups. We hit it off and I trusted him to choose my colors. Alex has been through some twists and turns in his life, which is now a creative one.  He was once in a gang in Massachusetts, got into graphic and Web design and has his own parlor. He blends technology with artistry, and loves to take photos and to paint.  He is a computer and online marketing whiz. He has nine children, loves motorbikes, and is planning to make some money so he can retire down the road and relax. He says tattoo artists have all kinds of writs and back problems from the positions they have to work in for long hours.  I think he will make it, he is thoughtful about his life, and a true artist. There’s nothing especially mysterious or dangerous about tattooing, it is increasingly popular and mainstream, but tattoo artists have a whiff of the outlaw about them, and tattooing has lots of enemies,  as I learned when I announced my tattoo plans on the blog, still quite controversial.

The internet is a fascinating place. There are good and bad things about it but it has spawned at least two traditions I consider scourges: unwanted advice and mindless controversy. In America, people seem to slowly be losing the idea that individuals can make their own decisions and be responsible for them. More and more people want others to make their decisions and they no longer consider it rude or intrusive (I do) to offer unsolicited advice, to presume it is wanted, or to argue with people who make decisions they might not like. This has always seemed obnoxious and arrogant to me, but e-communications make it easy, it is natural to many people.

I didn’t ask for people’s approval, I just shared the fact I was getting a tattoo and was opening to suggestions about what the tattoo might say. In fairness, I got a lot of good ideas, some were valuable to me in helping me make up my mind.  And most people, as usual, were quote supportive. Many were not. One Facebook reader asked me to meditate with my body to see if it wished to be painted or scraped, others simply told me not to do it, or said tattoos were repulsive to them. “Are you kidding?,” snarled one, “You are asking for ideas to burn something into your skin?” (Actually, there is no burning with tattoos, Alex used a find needlepoint dipped in dye.) Another begged me to change my mind. Many of the messages were written in the outraged and hostile tone that is rare on my Facebook page but part of the currency of the Internet. They are worth reading if only to see how far we have come from Thoreau’s idea that people have the right to make their own decisions, that this is part of living their lives, whether we like them or not.

I think the thing about the Internet is that it allows people to post without thinking much, or sometimes even reading the posts they are commenting on.  Why, I wonder, would tattoos be so controversial? Why would they threaten people so much? Although now that I think about it, a lot of people hated and feared my barnyard tire sculpture too and my pile of tires had been around for decades and seemed quite harmless and inoffensive to me.

For me tattoos are several things. One, an affirmation that I am an outsider like Alex (this may be what bugs people about them.)  People with tattoos have an instant bond with one another, they just know about living outside of the tent. Secondly, they speak to individuality. Human beings have longed wanted to adorn themselves, there is nothing dangerous about it  if you go to a good place (Alex is quite hygiene conscious, and the tattooing did not hurt much at all, it was more of a scraping than anything else.) Tattoos are also, to me an expression of creativity. Bringing color into my life, a statement on body that I wish to put my lips to the world and live my life. The Swallow Tattoos really hit home to me, the speak to a point in life.

As for the flap, I am not much taken with unsolicited advice or hostile messages. Neither makes much of an impression on me and I can’t recall it ever stopping me or changing my mind. I will take good care of my tattoo. I still have a gauze bandage on my arm, the photo below was taken right after Alex was finished and applied alcohol and anti-biotic ointment – that stung a bit. I am very happy with my tattoo. I might ask Maria to make a Swallow flag. I’m grateful to have one.  I asked Alex to think about one that comes all the way up my right arm the next time I’m in Bellows Falls.

We are back home from a couple of days in Vermont. Walked and walked,through fields and  covered bridges.  I got a tattoo in Bellows Falls, was shaken up by Boston. Some things confront your notion of the life of human beings, somethings affirm them, some challenge them. The tattoo turned out to be a bit controversial, I will share it with you. Very happy to be home. Spring is busting out all over.