T = Tattoos

You may need a magnifying glass to read the print on this screenshot,
or you could just take my word for it. But the Wellcome Image website
home page actually has a link to take you directly to 'Tattoo designs".
It's the one with the image on the right.
Awesome, yes? Told you this was not your average museum.

I once read a really cool article about tattoos  prepared for Smithsonian.com by an archaeologist, so it totally has street cred. 
It suggests that tattoos pretty much began as a female thing in ancient Egypt. Women had constellation-like tattoos on their stomachs as protection from evil. The pattern would expand with their bellies during pregnancy, encircling the unborn child, keeping it safe. I love that idea. That article created an image that has stayed with me. 
Not so much that I would ever let anyone imprint a constellation on my person with a needle and ink though. 

Historical tattoos can be seen in the Wellcome Collection. Yes, actual pieces of human skin that bear drawings. Not photos of the tattoos, the tattoos. Diembodied. 
The museum entry about them explains: 
The tattooed skin was purchased by one of Henry Wellcome’s collecting agents, Captain Johnston-Saint, in June 1929 from Dr Villette, a Parisian surgeon. Villette worked in military hospitals and collected and preserved hundreds of samples from the autopsies of French soldiers. In the late 1800s, tattoos were often seen as markers of criminal tendencies, or ‘primitiveness’. Medical men tried to interpret common images and symbols. Tattoos were also used as a tool for identification, a practice that continues today.

What do you think we can surmise about a soldier who chose
to have a sailor and a flower tattooed on his bicep?

That bothers me. 
What Dr Villette did bothers me. 
Surely, these soldiers chose tattoos that represented something of significance to them, something that formed part of their sense of self, something that became integral to their identity. Didn't they?
Then, after they died, Dr Villette saw fit to cut those images from their bodies and send his patients off to the afterlife with patches of exposed flesh where their tattoos should have been. Stripped of identity.
Or am I being over-sensitive? 
Are tattoos just permanent jewellery?

Back at letter S, I mentioned that Michael C Hall (the actor who plays Dexter) has a tattoo. Long story short, I was sitting in the front row at a recent performance of Lazarus (in which he stars as the aged Man Who Fell To Earth) and Michael C had bare feet for much of the production. 
The play is suitably mind-bendingly-David-Bowie-esque. With fab songs. But I found myself fixated on Michael C's foot. More specifically, on the tattoo on Michael C's instep. It's sort of like an Egyptian eye and a pyramid. 
I even did a crappy drawing of it in the notebook I carry everywhere in case I run into a celebrity with a tattoo I need to draw.
What is that thing?

At the time, unravelling the mystery of the symbolism of Michael C's Egyptian-looking sun and pyramid tattoo didn't detract from the enigmatic show, it seemed a sort of bonus conundrum. 
But now it's bugging the shit out of me.
What IS that thing?
And why would Michael C Hall have it tattooed on his foot?

During the month of April, I am participating in the Blogging from A–Z Challenge.

My posts will all feature images of and by the Wellcome Collection, Euston, London: the free destination for the incurably curious.

Mother Bear... or adoptive mother dragon lady?

U

What I'm about to say may alienate and polarise. I might be accused of being melodramatic... or self-indulgent... or extreme. And so be it. Everyone is free to stop reading at any point...

Being an adoptive mother is different from being a birth mother. Yep... no shit, I hear you say. And you'd be right. I'm stating the obvious. But today was one of those days that made the difference so real that I want to puke. So real, that I have had to sob. So real that I cannot sleep until I have written this.

My daughter (I just deleted all the adjectives I wanted to use to describe how brave I think she is) had an interview today at the Department of Human Services with two social workers she'd never met before to explain why she wanted to be allowed to see the file that contains the recorded details of her birth while we are in Korea over the next couple of weeks. 

She had to demonstrate that she has the maturity to discover nothing... or everything about her identity. 

She had to answer questions about whether she imagines that her birthparents might now be married and she has full siblings. She hadn't... until that suggestion was put to her... 

She had to explain how she feels about going to Korea and why she wants to see her adoption file to two people who do not know her... or me... or us as a family... or our experience with intercountry adoption or the Korean adoption community... 

She had to convince two social workers who have never been to Korea... and never met the people at the adoption agency in Seoul who made our family possible... that she was ready to see what details may exist about the conditions of her birth.... two people who know nothing of us and have lived significantly less of the adoptive experience and of Korean culture than we have. 

Immeasurably less.

Yes... they were doing their job. And certainly they are both delightful people. Gorgeous, both of them. Don't get me wrong.  I understand that none of their questions or comments were intended as barbs, nor even intended to be seen as a test. They were doing their job. But their job requires them to determine what might be best for my daughter.... MY DAUGHTER... a person they'd never met before... 

Mother Bear Me wanted to roar... burned to rage. But she couldn't. Daren't. Mother Bear had  to be quelled. Caged. She had to be still and quiet... to deny all her instincts. She had to  watch her cub in anguish and pain... and stay calm.  She had to trust that her baby girl, trained to be brave and strong, would find a way to hold her head up in the face of heartbreaking anguish. 
And she did. 
We both did.

I have never been more proud of my daughter. 
I have never been less in control as a mother.

It was a huge day. 
Tonight has been tears and hugs. 
 
Other mothers think I'm over-stating the situation, or being histrionic when I try to explain that adopted kids have a tougher road to walk and that being an adoptive mother has challenges other mothers cannot comprehend.
Today was one of those days.

I'm not seeking sympathy and I'd never want to discredit anyone else's pain. 
I love my life.
I am nothing but blessed to have been allowed the privilege of raising my two children. We have a wonderful and complex family life. Like all families.
But I have no idea what to expect next week after our meeting at the adoption agency in Seoul. 

Neither of us do.

I am not a birthmother.
I am not the birthmother of my children.
I am mother to two children who were born of other women. 
I am mother to two people whose mothers relinquished them because they believed that was best for their children.

I am not what's best...
Sometimes I'm not even what's good...
But I am Mother Bear.

Next week, Mother Bear will have to sit by as her cub discovers everything...
Or nothing...
There will be more tears and hugs... 
of the joy of discovery...
or the pain of never knowing...

We are both scared, my baby girl and I.

 

The Sperm Donor

'Well, look who I ran into,'crowed Coincidence.
'Please,'flirted Fate, 'this was meant to be.'
― Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Vol. 1

There were only sixteen of us in the group, even so, I knew there was no way I going to remember everyone’s name. Yes, we had each labeled our chest with a sticky tag upon arrival, but some people had used a plain blue biro that I couldn’t see from the other side of the table, while another had the sort of hand-writing that made it almost impossible to tell an a from and e, or whether that was double-r or an m.

I don’t know about you, but I reckon there’s something a bit creepy about a stranger surreptitiously peering at your left breast while you’re speaking to them. And let’s face it, those sticky tags have a habit of losing their stick pretty damn quickly. The seminar is rarely half over before Hadley the coffee cup joins the crowd by the sink, and someone’s right loafer has picked up Galatea.

Tell us something memorable about yourself. Perhaps choose something you’re proud of, something unique or funny, something you’re happy for us to remember you by.

It was almost my turn.  Two more introductions, then me.

The bitch inside my head slammed words against my skull like a squash ball thudding on the grubby court walls: dull, plain, old, trite, drab, sad, tame, bland—forgettable. You’re eminently forgettable…

Still, somehow, the voice of the quietly spoken young woman to my right began to plink through the echoing fog haze of my panic. Right after she’d explained that she worked in a highly specific and, frankly, to me quite intimidating field, she added something like this:

 And… well… I was donor conceived, and my search for the man who is my biological father has been quite public. Some of you might have seen the documentary about it.  And…well… actually… it turns out that my paternal grandfather is a rather famous Australian academic …

As she named him, I began to see the likeness. Not to the famous academic. To his son.

To the guy I’d known at uni.
To an anonymous student who gave sperm in exchange for money.

To the smiling bearded guy with the unnervingly blue eyes who’d shared a house with one of my friends and who, for several years, I’d thought was kind of gorgeous.

To her biological father.

I guess it shouldn’t have felt weird. But it did.

It felt like one of those life-imitating-art moments.

I was swallowed by images of nights sharing lentil and vegie mash in mismatched bowls. Secondhand chairs around a rickety table. Energetic, idealistic, expansive conversations fuelled by our passion for our studies. And cheap wine.

 
Anything was possible.

Everything was unknown.

I was not who I am now.

Not who I am now, but no more memorable then than now.

He wouldn’t remember me.

I will have left no impression.

No sticky tag on his memory.

Tell us something memorable about yourself… something you’re happy for us to remember you by…