To tattoo or not to tattoo - that is the question.

The last Ford Explorer I owned was an older model on which the forest green paint had completely oxidized, leaving the roof and hood that powdery, whitish gray color. I decided to paint it flat black with a brush and a can or two of Rustoleum. As part of my artistic nature, I intended on using a very rough, cheap brush, because I wanted to see the brushstrokes. I wanted to create swirls and curves that were going to be the underpainting to the high-gloss black that was going to be in a classic Maori tattoo pattern on the hood, with the pattern carrying down the vehicle's sides and back. As it was, the truck sold while it was still flat black and I never got to tattoo it with the glossy black paint.

I have always thought that I would have a tattoo someday - but I have never been able to decide exactly what image or words I would use, and maybe more importantly, where it should go on my body.

That decision has been made for me. I went to get my radiology oncology "mapping" done, which is a process that precedes the radiation treatments I will soon begin. Part of the mapping process is getting four blue dots tattooed on your body, tiny as a freckle. This is to assure that when you return for radiation the machines will use these dots as reference points.




Four small blue dots are most certainly not the image I wanted for my tattoo. Not even a color I would have chosen. It's not like the dots will be seen in public, unless you consider the radiation treatment room a public area. Or a doctor's exam room.

 Since I feel as if I have been naked or topless over the last several months in front of more people than in my high school graduation class (114), I really don't have any self-conscious thoughts or angst about these little blue dot tattoos. But just like the cancer I am fighting, it was never something that was on my bucket list: "Get 4 small blue dot tattoos." Perhaps imagining that I would have a tattoo someday was some kind of premonition. I know that every time I started thinking about "my" tattoo, I really had an artist's block - I could come up with nothing that had me convinced that it was going to be "my" tattoo. Now that the choice has been made for me, I'm okay with it.

I still think, however, that I need to paint my current black Ford Explorer with a Maori tattoo pattern on the hood, with the pattern carrying down the sides and back of the vehicle.