Notes on Permanence: Tattoos, Poems, and the MFA

Like any other person who’s gotten a tattoo before, I will tell you how easy it is to become addicted. As I sat there watching him swipe the tattoo gun back and forth across my arm, I was already picturing ideas for my next one, even when the needle went across the vein protruding from my inner elbow and sent a zing down the nerves of my arm into my fingertips. I won’t lie to you and say that tattoos feel good. They don’t. But even still, I just got my fourth one and am already thinking of what I want next. This is not to say that I’m a glutton for pain, but rather that I am willing to go through a little bit of discomfort if I know the end result will be worth it.

I think this, too, is the reason why I write. If you’ve read any of my work, you’ll know that I tend to write about the deep, the serious, the things that someone wouldn’t call “happy” in the traditional sense. Part of what drew me to writing – and a huge part of what keeps me coming back – is the way it leads me to discovery: I write a poem, and at the ending, I realize I am envious of everyone in my family who, unlike me, got to know my granddad. I finish an essay and realize that a part of me still carries guilt over the fact that I cannot save everyone I meet. So yes, maybe my writing isn’t always about the happiest of subjects, but if it leads me to a realization I might not have made if I didn’t sit down to reflect, then to me, it’s a successful piece.

We’ve talked a lot in class, especially this semester, about how difficult it is to write “happy things.” I admit that I too have sat down and told myself that today would be the day I write a happy poem, only to find that some bit of darkness seeped in to cast a shadow on what I hoped would be filled with light. At first, I saw that as failure. I feared that I was incapable of writing about happiness, that I was doomed to write sad, serious poems and essays forever. Even worse, I fell into the trapped mindset that if I let myself become truly happy, then the writing would stop.

But dear reader, as I find myself approaching my final days in the MFA program, I can tell you that isn’t true. I can tell you that when I entered the program, I had just hit some of my lowest lows. I can tell you that in the beginning and middle of the program, I again hit some pretty dramatic lows. But I can also tell you that in the back half of the program, I’ve reached some pretty great highs. I’ve built and strengthened relationships with some of my dearest friends. I’ve found and grown a healthy, nurturing relationship filled with love and trust and respect. I’ve celebrated some of my happiest moments with people I’m so glad to have in my cohort. And I can tell you that through it all, the writing never stopped.

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness, and how difficult it is to write a strictly happy piece. Many of my classmates have mentioned that they too aren’t good at writing happy things, that when they try, somehow trauma or pain or anger or sadness tends to set in like a stain. The thing about happiness though, is that it doesn’t imply the absence of trauma or anger or sadness. Rather, it means that in these moments, no matter how fleeting, the happiness wins.

So yes, maybe I write about primarily serious subjects. Maybe my mind often returns to moments of hardship or sadness instead of moments of pure joy. But for me, and probably for most (if not all) of you reading, our lives are spent primarily in this gray area – somewhere in between elation and sadness. Maybe my brain returns to difficult memories as a way to process emotion, a way to grapple with what has happened to see if I can make sense of it. Oftentimes, I can’t make true sense of my pain, but sometimes I am at least able to figure something out about myself, or my loved ones, or my relationships with both. So again, I find myself sitting through moments of discomfort in order to come out the slightest bit changed.

The tattoo I just got is the word create written along the bend of my inner elbow. It was an annoying pain, not unbearable but persistent enough to not be ignored. The whole process of cleaning my arm, placing the stencil, and completing the tattoo was done in less than twenty minutes, but simple as it was, when my tattoo artist wiped my arm down, it wouldn’t stop bleeding. None of my other tattoos bled as much as this one. Maybe it’s fitting, since writing, especially this year, has been one of the most stubborn, difficult things I’ve had to deal with. For me, it was thesis year, and that combined with the pressures of my job, my assistantship, and my regular school assignments became almost too much to handle at times.

There were days, especially during my second and third years in the program, that I wasn’t sure if I could do it all. Days when the stress built so much, I swore I’d never write again. Days, when it felt like completing a poem, was the most strenuous task anyone could ask of me. Some days I pushed through. Other days, I closed the Google doc, shut my laptop, and said I’d try again another day.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared of what will happen in the coming weeks when I’m done with the program. I am fortunate that I have a full-time job, ready and waiting for me to be done with school so I can go back to giving it my full attention. But of course, I worry that when I’m no longer in classes, no longer surrounded by brilliant classmates whose writing and comments inspire me constantly, I will lose my drive to write. That when the stress of life comes swooping back in, my creative side will take a backseat.

Maybe that’s true. Maybe I’ll graduate and won’t write another poem, another essay, for months. But I remember all the times during the past three years when battling traffic after a long day of work or driving home after an evening class, the brief flash of an idea would pop into my mind – nothing noteworthy, but persistent enough not to be ignored. How I’d pull out my phone and quickly type something into the Notes app or record a voice memo so I could return to the idea later. How even now, some of my best ideas come to me while exhausted, driving alone through the dark.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about permanence – about what it is and isn’t. The definition is “the quality of remaining unchanged, indefinitely.” So, for example, my tattoo is permanent. The word create should not fade from my inner arm at any point in this lifetime or the next. My time here, in the program, is not permanent. Time will go on, and I will leave, and soon, enough years will pass that the current students in the program will not know who I am. But I think of writing, of the habits and obsessions I’ve built these past three years. How I start many of my first drafts in my car. How even now, when the stress is high and motivation low, my mind still finds the words. How the writing never stopped, even when I wanted it to. So that, I think, is permanence. The writing – painful, visceral, triumphant – continuing, indefinitely.