On Friday night, Russ and I watched the documentary “Come And See Me In The Good Light” on Apple TV. It is about Andrea Gibson, the poet laureate of the state of Colorado who passed away recently. The documentary centers on Andrea’s relationship with their partner Meg Falley (also a poet) as the two of them navigate Andrea’s cancer. It was a beautiful film. It was incredibly life-affirming, it made both Russ and I want to spend more energy cherishing the incredible things we have in our life, and it showed how much beauty can exist in dark and painful moments. The film included the song “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet”, which was written and performed by Sara Bareilles (my all time favorite) and Brandi Carlile using unfinished poetry excerpts by Andrea Gibson. The song is stunning, I cried the first two times I listened to it, and I am sure it will end up being one of the songs I have listened to the most in my life.
Watching a film about Andrea and Meg living their lives as writers inspired me to write again. Seeing the two of them talk about writing and edit each other’s writing reminded me why writing feels like such an essential part of who I am. I may be an introvert, but I am also a creator, and I feel most alive when I am creating things. I was thought of by many people for many years as primarily an artist, and I loved when that was the primary way people thought of me. But I also have always been a writer, I’ve kept a journal for as long as I can remember, and it occurred to me the other night that the version of myself that I love the most is the version of myself who comes through when I’m writing in this blog. Seeing the person Andrea became in their writing (and their spoken word poetry) reminded me of the person I am when I write Daniel Chooses Love. And that made me want to spend more time being that person, because he’s pretty cool.
I also want to hold on to the fact that the person I am when I am writing here in Daniel Chooses Love is real. One of the primary struggles in my life lately has been holding on to what’s real. It started in January of 2025 (can you guess the date?) and has been getting worse as the months have passed, but especially in the past few months. I feel kind of like I’m floating through life, often unaware of how time is passing, existing as if outside myself. It’s a really strange thing, and the more intense that “outside myself” thing becomes, the more concerning it is. I finally spoke to my therapist about it at my last appointment, and she almost immediately helped me realize that it’s a trauma response. This is what trauma survivors feel like when their trauma responses are being triggered. My trauma history is being replayed in the things that are happening with our country’s “leadership”, and there’s no avoiding it completely. So my unconscious response is to dissociate - specifically the form of dissociation called “derealization” - and so I have to make a really conscious effort to remind myself of what’s real. Watching “Come And See Me In The Good Life” reminded me that the Daniel who comes through in Daniel Chooses Love is very real, and not only is he real, he’s a version of me who I want to spend more time being.
A concept that is bringing all of this together for me - the DCL version of Daniel, the idea of being an artist, the idea of being a creator, love of art in general, the need for things to feel real - is the concept of tattooing. If you didn’t already know this about me, I am a heavily tattooed individual. I got my first tattoo shortly after my 18th birthday, as soon as I was legally allowed to, and I am still getting tattooed to this day. My arms are completely covered in tattoos, much of my torso is covered in tattoos, and I even have a few tattoos on my legs. I have no tattoos on my back, because I want to be able to see my tattoos whenever I get them, so I have never wanted them on my back. But a lot of the front of my body is tattooed, and that makes me feel extremely happy.
Tattoos are a way of making concepts that are essential to who I am visibly represented on my body. These images or symbols serve multiple purposes. Sometimes they remind me to live into the person I want to be. The tattoos on my wrists are the tattoos that most remind me of the person I want to be.
On my right wrist, I have the letters “NC” stylized in a logo from the comic Bitch Planet. “NC” stands for “Non-Compliant”, and in the comic, women who are labeled “NC” are sent to a prison planet because they don’t perform “woman-ness” the way they’re “supposed to”. This could mean they’re queer, this could mean they’re “disobedient”, this could mean they’re disabled, this could mean they love their bodies without apology, etc.. Bitch Planet is an extremely feminist piece of fiction; it is the most important thing I’ve ever read in terms of reminding me of what matters to me; and I never want to forget to be Non-Compliant. My NC tattoo reminds me of who I want to be.
The tattoo on my left wrist also reminds me of who I want to be. The words “Choose Love” are tattooed on that wrist in my husband’s handwriting. After the Pulse massacre in 2016, I was angry, and I didn’t know what to do with the energy I felt around that tragedy. In a true “ah-ha” moment, the words “Choose Love” came into my head as a mission, and I asked Russ to send me a picture of those words written in Sharpie, and I then immediately took that picture to a local tattoo shop and got it inked. My “Choose Love” is my only impulsive tattoo, but it has served as a guiding star on how I want to live my life. It reminds me how much I love my husband (his handwriting was chosen for a reason), it reminds me of the intention I set for myself when the Pulse massacre happened, and lately it’s been reminding me of the person I am when I’m spending time on DCL.
But tattooing does more than just remind me of the person I want to be. Sometimes they remind me of the person I already am, both to myself and others. I have two tattoos that are matching tattoos. It is absolutely ASTOUNDING to me that there is one person in my life who loves me enough and believes in our love for each other enough to have a permanent depiction of that love on our skin. So it is even more ASTOUNDING and UNBELIEVABLE that there are TWO people who were willing to do that with me.
My first matching tattoo is a claddagh. It is the symbol that Russ and I had on our wedding invitation. The first ring Russ gave me was a claddagh ring, and when we decided to get married, I doodled a version of a claddagh with the letters “R” and “D” in it to represent the two of us, and then sent the picture to one of my best friends, Todd, who is a graphic designer. Todd took my doodle and turned it into a full-blown logo, and as soon as I saw Todd’s version of the design, I knew I’d be getting it tattooed. Several years after I got my R-and-D-claddagh, Russ surprised me by telling me he was also going to get it tattooed. I know it’s a little silly and a bit like tempting fate for a couple to get a matching tattoo, but I am so confident in our commitment to each other, and I love that Russ and I have this symbol that we wear right on our skin, because it tells me that Russ is just as confident in his love and commitment to me (and that I am deserving of that love and commitment).
My second matching tattoo was just done in September of this year. I had a gathering for my 40th birthday, and my cousin Molly and I decided to get matching tattoos. Molly has been my very best friend since the day she was born, and there is no relationship I trust and believe in like my relationship with Molly. We were absolutely meant to be in each other’s lives. I have been wanting to get a matching tattoo with Molly for years, and I cannot tell you how honored and amazed I was when she said she would get one with me. We got a line drawing tattoo of a whale to signify the whale watches we went on over the summers growing up when we visited our grandparents in Cape Cod. To have someone who is both my very best friend AND my cousin, and who loves me enough to get a matching tattoo with me, tells me the kind of person I am in Molly’s eyes. And that is quite an amazing feeling.
I’m currently in the middle of getting a tattoo covered up. I have a tattoo on my ribs on my left side of a cross with the letters AMDG, which is a Jesuit thing. I have wanted this tattoo covered up for a while. Firstly, the symbol of the cross is not the symbol of Christianity that speaks to my personal theology. Secondly, I have been associating this tattoo more and more with allegiance to a hierarchical, patriarchal institution that I have come to resent and reject. Thirdly, I don’t even know that I believe in any sort of religion or afterlife or anything anymore, so having an overtly religious tattoo just made less and less sense. But it was a dark, black tattoo, and I knew it would be difficult to cover up. That’s why I got excited when I spoke to someone who said they know a tattooer who specializes in cover-ups.
The tattoo artist asked me what ideas I had for a cover-up, and I sent him the lyrics to the song “Armor” by Sara Bareilles, which is a song she wrote after attending the Women’s March in Washington DC. Like I’ve already mentioned once in this post, Sara Bareilles is my very favorite musician, and “Armor” is such a feminist anthem. Even though I’ve come to understand my gender as (mostly) “cisgender man”, I know in my bones that the absolute most important concept to me is feminism, and so it absolutely made sense to have the cover-up of my symbol of patriarchy and hierarchy be a symbol of feminism. The artist and I chose an image of a phoenix wearing armor (because of the lyrics “you brought the flame / here comes the phoenix” in the song “Armor”), and I’m loving how it is turning out. I have one more sitting left to go for this tattoo on Tuesday of this week, but you can see the progress so far in the image below.
What feels particularly poignant about this tattoo is that it’s probably my most painful tattoo I’ve ever gotten. These sittings have been long, and extremely uncomfortable. But it seems significant to me that a phoenix is a symbol of death and rebirth, and maybe this phoenix being tattooed over this symbol of patriarchy has to be the painful death of an old allegiance in order for the rebirth into the fully and freely feminist version of me to happen. It’s also significant to me that the artist and other employee of the shop have been engaging in some toxic cis/het male banter during the process of this tattoo, which makes the process more “painful”, and which I think will therefore make the final rebirth at the end of the last sitting all the more satisfying. (I will not be naming the artist who is doing this tattoo, nor the shop where it’s being done, because while the artist is doing an incredible job on the piece itself and is clearly very talented, I would not recommend this shop after hearing the things he and the shop owner feel so comfortable saying to each other / in front of customers.)
So yes, it has been really hard to feel like things are real as I continue to exist in trauma-response mode. And I keep finding myself in at least a semi-dissociative state. But I am trying to remind myself of what IS real. And my tattoos do a lot to remind me of what is real to me in my life. I can look at them and see with my eyes the reality of these things like my relationship with Russ, my relationship with Molly, my feminism, and the person I am here on DCL. I can feel the pain of the tattoos being carved into me and know that the very physical process of getting tattooed reminds me of the reality of the concepts the tattoos represent. I can run my fingers over the tattoos and literally feel the things I believe in, and they feel like me. And so while tattoos are still considered taboo to some people, I am finding them extremely grounding, and am finding how they help reinforce my reality. And I am grateful for that.