Liz Lazzara recalls a time when she was a blank slate—and all she felt was blank.
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This is the story of the quill pen, punctured and inked into my skin years ago, but, like a growing child, only coming into its own meaning now.
It came to me when I was 23 and felt like anything but a child. I had just broken off my second engagement, and was in the sort of turmoil that feels like an epiphany — sleeping with my ex boyfriend, convincing myself he would fall in love with me; trekking to nightclubs in the winter in short dresses and no jacket; doing drugs with my then-coworkers until all hours of the night.
Everywhere I went, every boy I kissed, every puff or line I took, I was looking for something to fill the blankness I carried with me. I had gotten lost in one guy after another, transforming myself into the sort of girl they’d find most appealing, the sort of girl who could lock down a man, the sort of girl who ultimately has nothing of her own.
There was a blank slate enshrouding my entire existence, and filling it with easy pasttimes only made it blanker. I thought I was drawing, writing, painting my life with rich and nuanced color, only to find that the marks wouldn’t take. None of it was me. None of it was mine.
Except for one intractable part of me that had been with me since my earliest memories: writing.
I penned my first poem when I was seven years old. It was an assignment for school, something I garnered for being ever-so-smart and finishing my normal work early. A simple thing, it was about the five senses of happiness — what it would look like, feel like, smell like, and so on. But I was elaborately and entirely smitten with the art form from that point on, writing poetry, plays, short stories, screenplays, and, eventually, essays.
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When I walked into the tattoo parlor, I had been in a writing drought. College had ended, and, with it, the assignments and deadlines to which I had grown accustomed. But for a few haphazardly posted poems on Tumblr, I wasn’t making anything new, or revising anything old. I wanted to remind myself that I was a creator, first and foremost, and that writing would be a permanent part of my body, and sometimes a reminder to my soul.
So an image became a blueprint, and a blueprint became a series of black lines, and those lines began to fill with shading until I was left with a testament to my life-long love on the curve of my left hip.
For a time, it was merely an accessory, a trophy, something to show off as a symbol of being “an interesting person,” “a sexy person,” “an alternative person.” For a time after that, it became as natural to my body as fingers or toes. Now, though, it’s almost a touchstone.
Not long ago, I moved home to start a new life. One without a husband, a place of my own, or any sort of financial stability. The only things I have right now are my cat, my clothing, and this keyboard.
Once again, I’m left with a blank slate, though one without ex-sex, clubbing, or drugs. It’s a newly washed chalkboard, a brand new whiteboard, a primed wall ready for paint. The only thing to throw up there, lacking a job, an apartment, or a relationship, are my words.
Sometimes they’ll come, sometimes they won’t. But I will always have my talisman, inked into my flesh, to remind me of my purpose, and, one day, the blankness will be filled with my own invented script.
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Photo: DarrelBirket / Flickr
