In fact, it would serve you well to read all posts from March 2011. There's some interesting back story there, anyway.
Jessica Weisenberg is a sensible girl. It's true. My Aunt Ruth told me so, and she never lies. Jessica does not spend money on herself frivolously. She turns in her homework on time and she braids her daughters' hair before bed so it won't tangle by morning. She is the picture of femininity because self sacrifice is the apex of the feminine existence.
Okay, maybe none of that is true. Certainly, that last bit is not.
Lately I find myself to be quite a bit less pragmatic than usual. Instead of buying myself clothes that fit, for example, I bought an iPad and a new tattoo. Why? Well for one thing, I'm still losing weight. Secondly, iPads and tattoos are forever and frankly, I don't care enough about bodies to keep clothes that long. Thirdly, we're all going to die, people. Your family, friends and children, they will die. This is true. I've been a little closer to it than I hope most of you have, and let me tell you: there's nothing there but nothingness, so you best enter into nothing with the best, least regretful self you can manage.
The tattoo I am getting is AURYN from The Neverending Story. I'm going to go against my nature and tell you why in as explicit terms as I can bear:
1. AURYN, the thing itself
As a child I knew I was, for lack of a better term, Other. I was a bastard, a girl, very smart, very poor, imaginative, outspoken, and I had many, many reasons to be precocious in ways I wish no child ever had to be precocious. I watched The Neverending Story approximately 15,000 times. Because the fantasy appealed to me as means of escape.
Later, when I began to realize I would be a poet, my greatest fear became The Nothing. I have many references to Nothing in my notebook. Sartre is responsible for some of them. Sebastian is responsible for the rest.
I began to rekindle my admiration for AURYN wholeheartedly when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, because of the concept of eating ones' inverse, which I equated with microscopic cells eating my full vibrant life--but also because is an infinity symbol, ouroboros and pisces all rolled into one.
2. The Earthling Symbol for Everything
Many years ago, I was introduced to a girl who said, "You must be the infinite Miss Jessica." At least, that's what I thought she said. It is entirely possible that she said "infamous." Infamous would be more likely. Nonetheless, I heard Infinite.
At the time, I was 18, at a creative low point but rapidly racking up experience points. I realized, whether or not it was true, that I considered myself infinite. I was sure the universe provided infinite substantive amusement. I was sure I would never run out of thoughts. I was sure I would never run out of words. Then I wasn't 18 anymore. And I was scared I'd lose my infinite qualities. I began to think of every day of my assimilation into adulthood and the middle class as a sanitation process, whereby the bacteria which provided my access to the Force was bleached from my being.
I am not worried about that now. My deep brain is full enough of gender/class/race that I know I'll always have one thing or another to consider and many things to make from each consideration. So maybe I am infinite after all.
2. The Ouroboros
If you didn't already know, the ouroboros is an ancient alchemy symbol which represents infinite creation and destruction, much in the same way my cells will infinitely keep destroying each other and recreating themselves. Really, there are too many things to say about this guy. So, I'll let Carl Jung do it:
The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail.
The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself.
The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This ‘feed-back’ process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious.
The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This ‘feed-back’ process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious.
4. Pisces
Yes, my birthday does fall on the ides of March. Yes, that does technically make me a pisces. No, I don't believe in astrology. Because I believe astrology, like all other beliefs outside of my own belief system, is bullshit. Please, let's not pretend any other kind of believer (or cynic) thinks differently about their beliefs vs. other beliefs. If it weren't bullshit to them, they'd believe that thing and not the other thing.
I do, however, believe in personalities. As for myself, I am an INFP. What astrological sign corresponds to the INFP? Why, Pisces, of course.
In addition to the COINCIDENCE that my personality lines up with my sun sign, (and I cannot stress the word COINCIDENCE enough,) I identify strongly with the duality of pisces. You see, the fish are supposed to be swimming in a circle of fantasy/reality, which is what I am doing all the time: Bookkeeper Jessica -->Arty Jessica --> Mama Jessica --> Poet Jessica --> Filial Piety Jessica --> Least Possible Scenario Jessica --> Pragmatic Jessica --> English Major Jessica--> White Trash Jessica --> Masquerading as Middle Class Jessica--> PTA Jessica--> Chanteuse Jessica...ad. infinitum. Frankly, it's exhausting. But I've come to the point now where I realize that most of us can only ever hope to be self aware versions of the stereotypes we always were but thought we weren't.
So yes, a tattoo. To symbolize my defeat over the HellSummer. To tell myself I've accepted my disease and it's time to move on from letting it ruin my life. To remind myself that I am strong. To symbolize that however much time I spend eating myself, I am recreating myself in equal proportion.
In ten or fifteen years, after I get cancer, lose my colon, and I become okay with all of that, I will get another tattoo. It will be this:
Because then I will have become a master of death.
No comments:
Post a Comment