She Never Ceases to Amaze Me

After Em and Ella were snuggled in and asleep last night, Mom and I rendezvoused on the stoop for a moonlit chat before going to bed ourselves. I had to remember, record in my mind parts of our conversation because it was that profoundly meaningful.

Mom read the “Always Remember I love You My Molly Mugwump” blog post and cried. This was her response to me: “I am not amazing. For thirteen years, I prayed for you. I truly believe you were a gift from God. All I have done, Nicole, is take care of you because I wanted you so badly and I promised God if he gave you to me, I would take care of you.”

She told me I was the one who is amazing and special and that she has always know this. She also said that she thinks I am finally starting to understand that I am special – though I haven’t fully grasped it in her opinion. While she has no plans on going anywhere any time soon, Mom also told me that if she went to sleep and wasn’t there in the morning, I would know that she was at peace because she has seen me happier than I have been in a long time. She said she had confidence in my ability to do anything I put my mind to, and that she is so very proud of me (I can’t type this without crying. Geez!)

We talked about other things. About this project I have undertaken. What I quoted above, however, are words I will forever carry with me. She might not think she is, but my mom is amazing to me. I only hope I can be a fragment of the mom she is -- for Em and Ella. I am humbled by the way my life has been blessed. Truly. Honestly. Deeply.

 My Mom never ceases to amaze and inspire me. I simply had to share this!

Always Remeber I Love You My Molly Mugwump

Today is my Mom’s 69^th Birthday. She has distinctively beautiful handwriting – so unique that it took loads of practice to forge her signature on notes when I skipped school. No matter how diligently I practiced, it never was exact.

A few months ago I asked her to write something to me, so that I could have a tattoo done in her handwriting. She handed me a slip of paper upon which she had written “Always Remember I Love You My Molly Mugwump.”

In honor and celebration of her birthday, Moto tattooed the message on my left ankle, swirling it somewhat around the Hamsa I had done six years ago (another incredibly emotional story for another day).

When Moto finished, I looked down and felt tears flood into my eyes. With the ink smears wiped away, there was this vivid blank handwriting that looked amazing and more than being aesthetically pleasing, I have a piece of my Mom that I will carry with me forever – not that I wouldn’t carry her in my heart, mind and soul; the tattoo, however, is a constant reminder of her unconditional love and support.

Last May my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, they caught it in the early stages. She had a lumpectomy followed by six weeks of radiation therapy. Currently she is on an oral form of chemotherapy that is, somewhat, more mild than if she were receiving it IV. Still, it hasn’t been a walk in the park.

My parents divorced when I was three, and I am essentially an only child (I have a half sister who is eleven years my junior and we did not grow up together. She lived in Montana with our Dad and my Step-Mom, and I lived in Miami). Mom was a single parent in every sense of the word.

Geography, it would seem, made it difficult for my Dad to play an active role in my life. Long distance didn’t make for a warm and fuzzy or close relationship. Mom pretty much did it all – worked to support us, made sure I did well in school, helped with homework, took care of me when I was sick, encouraged me in everything I dreamed of doing. She cooked and cleaned; chauffeured me to and fro the destination du jour. She held me when I cried and joined in when I laughed.

My mother taught me – by example – the meaning of genuine, unconditional love and selflessness.

When I was a little girl, missing my Dad, crying in bed at night, my Mom used to sing “My Blue Heaven.” I always remember her changing that one lyric to “just Molly and me, and Sooters (we had a cat named Soot) makes three” offering assurance that the three of us were going to be OK. That we were going to make it.

Although my name is Nicole, the nickname Molly stuck. To Molly, my Mom added Mugwump, which she explained is a bird who has his ‘mug’ on one side and his ‘wump’ on the other. To her, I have always been and will always be Molly Mugwup.  That is one of the amazing things about Moms – something I didn’t fully grasp until I became a Mom myself: No matter how old your children are, in some ways they will forever be the little babies you snuggled against your chest while they slept and dreamed and smelled so milky sweet and perfect.

Finding out she had cancer was devastating for us both. Despite our faith in God, the idea of losing someone you love is heartbreaking. She and I have been together for thirty-five years. She still lives with us. She has been present for every event in my daughters’ lives just like she was for mine.

When she told me she had found a lump in her breast, it was almost as if time stopped and the world came to a screeching halt around me. How would we tell the girls? How would I comfort them and still be able to grieve myself? Who would I drink coffee with in the morning? Who would wander around Wal-mart with me on a Saturday afternoon?  Or listen to my ideas involving duct tape and furniture? Who would beam with pride at every accomplishment? Or read every article in the paper with my byline? Who would offer me reassurance when I felt like life was falling apart? Or tell me not to beat myself up for not doing something that measures up to my insanely impossible perfectionist standards?

I had talked to Moto a few months about wanting to have this tattoo done so I would always have my Mom’s handwriting – a visual, ever present echo of her love for me – as a literal part of me the way she has always been such a huge part of my life. Today, her birthday, seemed like the perfect occasion to have this tattoo done.

One year later, my Mom is cancer free. She is still on the oral chemo, and I have noticed a gradual slowing down. Through everything, she has not missed one day of work nor has she ceased to be active with me and her granddaughters. I find her absolutely inspiring and amazing. I do my best to enjoy each and every moment I have with her, because I know that she is not going to be around forever.

 And when the day comes that I can’t share a cup of coffee with her in the morning, I will forever be able to see her unending, unconditional love written like a soft whisper and a warm hug on my skin.

Blessed and Thankful

My mind, body and soul have been flooded with thoughts and emotions pinging, zigzagging, and ricocheting off of one another such that I feel like the Pin Ball Wizard.

Those of you who continue to follow me on this journey will come to know that I am a devoutly spiritual and faithful person. While I sometimes find myself bogged down by self-doubt or anxiety, like a cat that always lands on its feet, I find my focus and press forward toward whatever goal I have set on my horizon.

Hand in hand with my passion for writing (mentioned in an earlier blog post) has always been a love for reading. I have an insatiable appetite when it comes to written words – devouring books like a starved man in desperate need for nourishment.

Believing that everything in life happens for a reason, at the perfect time, applies to books as well. I have purchased books, brought them home with every intention of diving into the pages, only to be distracted by one thing or another. That book might sit on my nightstand for a week, six months, maybe even a year, before some current inside starts to stir and the next thing I know, I’m sitting with that book in hand.

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is one example of being drawn to the exact book, the precise words, the spiritual nourishment I needed at the perfect time. It accompanied me to the mammogram and needle biopsy that diagnosed my mom’s breast cancer last May. And while I was unable to focus on reading at the time, it was in my bag while I impatiently waited for her surgeon to deliver a report after the lumpectomy.

So many thoughts and ideas in The Alchemist resonated with me at that time, making such an impact that it has become one of those books that I read over and over again. The pages have been marked with my own questions and notations – multiple passages emphatically underlined in pencil:     

“Because there is a force that wants you to realize your Personal Legend; it whets your appetite with a taste of success.”

“In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens. God has prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left for you.”

“But the sheep had taught him something even more important: that there was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time that he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.”

“When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it.”

“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”

Making the decision to start the Soul to Skin Project has already started to carry me places I never imagined. With every fiber of my being, I believe this is what I am supposed to be doing at this precise moment in my life.

Like everything else I do, I am approaching this with unbridled enthusiasm, passion, love and purpose. Writing a book has been my dream since I was a child. Over the years I have come up with a million excuses for why I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have time. I wasn’t a good enough writer. People wouldn’t be interested in what I had to say.

I have come to the point in my personal and professional life when I am choosing to abandon my fears and doubts in order to pursue the dream that has always been inside of me. As I sit and write this I am awestruck by the surrealism of this very moment, everything leading up to it and the endless possibilities awaiting me in the future.

Thank you to everyone who has looked at the Soul to Skin Project blog, who have read the posts, who have ‘Liked’ the Soul to Skin Project page on Facebook. The outpouring of support, encouragement and love is truly humbling and amazing. I sincerely hope you will continue to follow this project, that you will share your thoughts and comments, continued support and encouragement.

Every morning that I wake up, I thank God for the blessings in my life. When I looked at the page views for the blog and had an email inbox full of Facebook ‘Likes’ and comments on the Soul to Skin Project, I was overwhelmed with feelings of positivity and possibility and immense love.

Today I feel especially blessed and incredibly thankful, and I would like to say thank you to everyone out there who has filled my soul with love, blessings, support and encouragement. None of this would be possible if all of you didn’t collectively care about this too. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

A Rose for Mary

“A permanent reminder of a temporary feeling.” As much as I like to think Jimmy Buffet is inanely annoying (no offense to any Parrot Heads out there reading this – we can respectfully agree to disagree), I will concede that he might have a point here.

This is part of the human condition after all: sometimes we make choices and decisions in life that were not our best judgments – in hindsight, of course. Tattoos are no exceptions. I will confess that the first tattoo I got when I was 18 is no longer existent. Gone. Erased. Covered up. And another story for another day. I promise.

I bring up the subject of the cover up because the first gentleman I had the pleasure of interviewing was having an old tattoo covered up while, simultaneously, getting a memorial portrait in honor of his Mom.

While Kevin was a 20 year old student at Clemson University, he had the opportunity to travel to Okinawa, Japan and live there for a month with one of his college buddies who was from Japan originally.

Crazy as it might seem, Kevin said he arrived in Okinawa just in time to take part in a Swedish Beer Festival that happened to be the event du jour. Like many normal, American 20 year old men, Kevin knocked back a few “itty-bitty” individual sized kegs of beer. As is the tendency when one imbibes copious amounts of alcohol, Kevin “got hammered.”

Hammered. Twenty. Traveling in a foreign county. Embracing the spirit of youth and adventure. Short story long, Kevin looks down an alley, sees a sign that reads “Tat2” and decides he is going to commemorate this event in his life with a tattoo.

He enters the tucked-away-in-an-Okinawa-alley tattoo parlor, complete with red clay and dirt floors, to get his first tattoo. After standing in line behind about eight Marines who were getting inked, it was finally Kevin’s turn.

Anyone living in the SC Upstate understands the devotion and loyalty to either Clemson or USC. Kevin was a tried and true CU Tiger, so he pulled out his school identification. At the time, Clemson was represented by a symbol that looked like a C and U together with an orange flame in the center. This was Kevin’s choice for his tattoo.

Talking with Kevin, I don’t get the impression that he regrets having something Clemson related tattooed on his body. One can casually observe that he wears his Clemson University collegiate ring proudly upon his right ring finger. The problem with his tattoo had more to do with youth and carelessness.

Admittedly, Kevin was not only intoxicated when he got his first tattoo; he was also badly sunburned. Because of the sunburn, his skin did not cooperate in retaining the tattoo ink. The dye simply bled out. The tattoo artist, according to Kevin, did a less than stellar job on the Clemson piece. And the next day, Kevin and his buddy spent the day in the sun and the ocean.

He violated every cardinal rule of tattoo aftercare and, as a result, always felt like his tattoo looked like crap. Because the tattoo was on his right shoulder blade area, it was easier to forget it was there. “Out of sight; out of mind,” said Kevin. However, for the last 20 years, in the back of his mind, Kevin always thought “Man, I wish I had something that when people look at it they’re just like ‘Wow! That’s awesome.’”

Twenty years later, May 25, 2012, Kevin finds himself at Amber Island Tattoo to have his old tattoo covered up and to have a new custom tattoo portrait indelibly inked in memory of his Mom. He is nervous. Second guessing his choices.

His idea for the cover up part of the tattoo is a rose, but Kevin is worried that a rose will be perceived as feminine – calling his masculinity into question. When he tells me why he has chosen a rose, I assure him that I don’t find the choice or idea the least bit feminine.

Roses were his mom’s favorite flowers. Each year for Mother’s Day, Kevin would give his mom a new variety of rose bush – each of which she planted to create an incredibly beautiful hedge in the yard of the home she shared with her husband of 58 years.

When deciding on the photograph he wanted Moto to use as the inspiration for the portrait of his Mom, Kevin chose one of her in her younger years, when Kevin was a twelve year old boy. As a Christian, Kevin believes that when a person dies and goes to heaven, they do so in a young body. Kevin also wanted a portrait of his Mom the way he remembers her most – young, vivacious and filled with life and love.  

Kevin’s mom, Mary, was 69 years young when she passed. The cause of her death remains unknown because the family declined to have an autopsy performed. Her death was completely unexpected. Mary had not been ill, so there was no hint or warning.

Kevin’s parents woke up early the way they had every morning. While his dad, Gene, stayed upstairs to shower and get dressed, Mary went downstairs to fix herself some peanut butter crackers and a Diet Coke, after which she would curl up on the end of the couch and turn on the television. And that’s what she did. She made some peanut butter crackers, got a Diet Coke, sat down on the corner of the couch, pulled a blanket up and went to sleep.

Gene came downstairs, and looking over to see his wife, snuggled under a blanket and asleep on the couch, made a pot of coffee, poured himself a cup and sat down in his recliner directly across from her. He looked at her. Said her name. And realized she was gone. She sat there, went to sleep and never woke up.

Friday, March 26, 2010. 6:30 in the morning. Kevin will never forget that day. And though he is thankful for the way his Mom died, that it was peaceful for her and without any tragic long, drawn out suffering, it was still “very, very, very traumatic.” That dreaded phone call at 6am can change life in an instant. Kevin says it was unbelievable.

Incorporated into the rose and portrait, Kevin wants the Bible verse from Philippians 1:3: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.”

Moto completed the rose cover-up on Friday. The next step for Kevin will be the memorial portrait in honor of his Mom.

First Interview Friday

Tomorrow morning I will have my first official interview at Amber Island Tattoo. I have fresh batteries in my digital recorder. Camera battery is charged. Moto is on board. So excited!

Beginnings...

It is amazing how things in the universe come together when the timing is right.

I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. I started working on my first mystery novel in 3^rd grade. I think I managed to write two or three chapters before I was easily sidetracked by something else; I was only eight after all.

I’ve had other starts and stops between then and now, but in all this time, my desire to write has never dissipated despite being put on the back burner for a variety of reasons like graduate school, child bearing, bill paying … you know how it goes.

Today has been a pivotal day. Today is the day I begin my journey toward the actual writing and completion of a book.

I am both amazed and overwhelmed by the possibilities.

One morning not too long ago, I woke up with the idea about writing a book that focuses on the stories behind people’s tattoos. I let it mull around in my mind and decided that this is a journey I need to take – that I want to take.

My working plan, which I assume will evolve along with the process, is to interview anyone and everyone interested in sharing the story or meaning behind their tattoos. It is as simple as that. They talk. I listen. I record the interview. I write it out. I edit it. I take photographs. Then, at some point, I take all of these amazing stories and incredible art work and I craft them into a book. This is my ultimate goal.

People and words are my professional passions. I’ve had careers in teaching (English) and counseling. My most recent “profession” has been newspaper reporting and being a full-time, hands-on Mom 99.9% of the time. Writing, for me, has been the perfect marriage of things I love.

Growing up in Miami, Florida laid the foundation for what I think is an inclusive perspective when it comes to people and the world around me. I think people should be celebrated for their differences and those things that make them special and unique.

Each of us has a story to tell. Truth be told, we have more than one. As a reporter, and when I worked as a counselor, I love listening to people’s stories – where they’ve been, what they’ve done, how they’ve gotten from Point A to Point B and the journey in between.

For the last two years, I have been working as a reporter for the Pickens County Courier based in Pickens, SC. My regular beat finds me covering local government and school board meetings, but some of my favorite pieces and assignments are the human interest stories.

My editor has always given me a lot of latitude when working on our features section. In June of 2011, I came up with the idea of spending time at Amber Island, talking with the tattoo artists and some of the clients coming in to have tattoos done. The culmination of work wound up with a Lifestyles Page cover story and art work which, to this day, remains one of my favorite pieces.

Tattoos have fascinated me since I was a teenager – about 15 to be exact. That is the year that I will forever mark in my mind as my year of rebellion against the norm. I started listening to The Doors, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. I read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I started to lose the weight that had made me a social outcast and scapegoat for insecure bullies.

Without knowing it, or being consciously aware, I began a long journey toward acceptance of myself for being different: for not having a Dad in my life, for not being the perfect size two, for not being terribly athletic, artistic or the class valedictorian. 

The day I turned 18, my friend Jimmy, (who was in his 20s) bought me a bottle of Absolut Vodka. I mixed it with Diet Coke and lime – had a couple of drinks – and decided I was ready to go get the tattoo I had been wanted for the last three years and knowing, full-well, that my straight-laced, conservative mother was going to flip!

Since that time I have acquired more tattoos – each of which marks a milestone in my life or, for me, is a remembrance of some moment when I learned something about myself, who I am, who I want to be. If anyone asked, I have a story that accompanies each piece of art work on my body.

I can’t begin to fathom – well, obviously I can since I’ve had this idea – the number of stories out there begging to be told.

Fortunately, as I have gotten my own tattoos, I have developed a friendship of sorts with two amazing tattoo artists at Amber Island in Easley – Moto and Jesse. As soon as I discovered this idea rattling around in my brain, I ran it by Moto. Amber Island is his shop, and I hoped that he would embraced my idea – the way he has embraced our friendship – and that he would allow me the opportunity to try to make a go of this project using the client base from his studio.

He dug the idea. As did Jesse. I totally adore those guys and I can already tell I am going to be thanking them immensely for this opportunity to allow me to grow as a writer and human being. I can feel the love and support already – just in these beginning stages. This is going to be a most excellent journey.

Anyway, I stopped by the shop today with the initial paperwork and project scope and explanation I put together. My idea was well received and, I think, as they say, we are in business. I have my first interview scheduled for this Friday.

I will be as diligent about updating this blog as possible. Please check back often. Feel free to comment, share a story, offer suggestions, and lend your support and enthusiasm. I am wide open and ready to receive everything that the universe wants to throw my way.

I’m ready for a new beginning. Bring it on!