There is a Patty Griffin song called Be Careful. These are not profound words. These are words that are uttered more often than not, as a gentle, loving warning. These words are more about concern really, than warning. For instance, you may remind a co-worker as they leave to be careful. It’s not an angry mandate like “Get away from there!” “Leave me alone!” “Don’t touch that!” “Get off my yard!” or “Beware of the dog!” It’s a simple be careful. Full of care. Take care.

The song is about all the girls, all us girls, from everywhere and in different situations. The refrain is the same, “Be careful with me.” Three years ago I decided that I wanted this tattooed on my back.

You’re rolling your eyes now, right? But think about it. What a simple request! I’ve spent so much time in hospitals and nursing facilities, in the last 3 or 4 years, to know that being careful is sometimes forgotten amidst the changing of dressings, the hooking of bags and IVs, the lifting up, down, and over. People become only bodies, with bodily functions to attend to. Sometimes a gentle reminder is in order. I know that most of you are thinking those words would most likely be viewed in that OTHER scenario. You would be wrong. I won’t lie to you, it did cross my mind. However, the naughty scenario is far less likely than the caretaker one of my not- so- distant- future. So this was where my head was at when this germ of an idea came to me. It grew like a virus. Only one thing held me back…

Cold, unadulterated, gripping fear. I was afraid of the needle.

My daughter has approximately 17 tattoos at last count. I’ve even accompanied her on one occasion as she read a magazine while they carved her skin. She would wince occasionally. It became my quest to poll everyone I saw who had a tattoo. What did it FEEL like, I would ask. The answers varied from constant bee stings, to a really bad sunburn. Once the answer was, “Well, if you made it through childbirth, you can make it through a tattoo.” Great. I screamed like a banshee for eleven hours and begged for drugs when I had my daughter. They had to SCRAPE her out of me. I felt like a pumpkin being carved for Halloween. The concept of “pushing” as the nurse and doctor pleaded of me was totally incomprehensible. I puffed my neck out like a toad. This was not the region they needed me to push from. If getting a tattoo was only slightly less than this, I would NOT be partaking.

Still, the idea nagged at me. I would have nightmares of lying on a steel table in a tattoo parlor, (I’m SURE they don’t call them that anymore), with my arms strapped down and a sound, not unlike a chainsaw, getting closer. I scream and twitch, only to have these horrible, jagged, black marks on my body for the REST of my life. But I couldn’t let it go. I was going to do it for my 50th Birthday. I didn’t. That was two years ago.

I went to visit my daughter, the Coolest Person I Know, in Atlanta a few weeks ago. I was surrounded by twenty-somethings with boundless energy (when they finally got up around one or two in the afternoon). Their schedule was to be my schedule for the next four days. My kid dragged me around from 3 in the afternoon until 4 in the morning. I have never known a better docent for counter culture. But this is a whole different story.

We were driving down Ponce de Leon, but you don’t CALL it that when you’re cool and you live in Atlanta…you simply call it “Ponce.” Kristin said, “That’s where I got a couple of my tats,” as she pointed to a place called Liberty Tattoos. “I want to get my tattoo.” I heard myself say the words. It was time. She asked me if I was sure. I took a Xanax and said I was. So she pulled into the lot and told me to wait while she checked to see if her friend had time to “do me.” I sat in her car for what seemed like hours sifting through the books, trash, and thrift store finds. It was as I feared. He had time.

A 52-year-old woman walks in to a place with color on the walls and color on the people. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? “Hey everyone, this is my Mom. She’s getting her first tattoo.” Polite disinterest shifted toward my vicinity. Her friend was busy torturing a young man’s shoulder, but he smiled the sweetest smile, and had the kindest eyes. He told me it was very nice to meet me, and perhaps I should look through the books on the counter to get an idea of what I wanted. I knew he would be a good one for my first time.

Be Careful with me was going to ride along my lower back for the rest of my life, so the script had to be feminine, but not too fancy, so it would be legible for all of the nursing home aides who would be flipping me around in the future. Her friend checked his schedule. “DAMN! He said. I forgot that someone is coming after this one. Maybe your mom could come back at nine?” The Xanax had just kicked in. I knew I would chicken out by nine if I had to ruminate on it for another few hours. He suggested another artist, and assured me that this person was just as good as he was. So I agreed. Man- With- Kind-Eyes disappeared into a back room.

The man who emerged rubbing his eyes looked like felon. He looked like the wiry, mean guy that all the OTHER felons wouldn’t mess with. And it looked like he’d been disturbed from a nap. He was entirely covered with tattoos. I could tell he didn’t give a rat’s ass that I was someone’s silly mother in a mid-life crisis, coming in to get a first tattoo. I was taking small, short breaths now and scanning the place for a paper bag. “Do you know what you want?” “ Um, yes, I like this script, with maybe some color accents…and do you have any sort of topical numbing agent?” He looked at me like I had 3 heads. There is no topical numbing agent. We decided on a script type. He made some suggestions. He told me to scoot my pants down and sit on a little round stool with rollers and lean forward with my elbows on my knees.

Try this at home. Find a little stool that scoots around on rollers. Sit on it and lean forward in the above-mentioned fashion and see how stable you are after, say, fifteen minutes. “Wouldn’t it be better if I laid down?” I squeaked. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked me with what I detected was a little irritation.

The sound is not unlike a weed-eater, or a sewing machine, or an electric steak knife.

Kristin asked me if I was all right. My leg was vibrating like a hummingbird’s wing. He started. I didn’t twitch away. It didn’t feel good. But oddly, it wasn’t all that bad either. Kristin asked me to say something. I couldn’t. She took my picture.

My tattoo man is Chris Howell. He is an artist. He wrote my words beautifully across my back. It took him 20 minutes. I believe he was gentle. He was careful. He and I will be wedded in this words-on-skin way for the rest of my life. I noticed how exceptional his tattoos were. He actually gave me a little smile. I was ashamed at my first impression. I chalked a little of it up to fear, the rest to ignorance. Kristin made me pull my pants down all night to show her friends. “It’s for when she’s in the nursing home,” she explained. It’s better for her to think of these words in that way too.

Be careful with me.