One of the things I have been wanting to do for a while is
get a tattoo. I have a seahorse tattoo on my ankle from when I was 19, and in
my eyes, it was something I had waited a while for, and now I was cool.
Cool-er, anyway.
I have always loved it, and it’s a part of me. When I had
milestone birthday last year, I decided I wanted something to remind me to stay
in the moment, to be still instead of racing ahead to the next thing.
I contacted Kiel Ferrari at Integrity Tattoo in Royersford, who
was incredibly awesome. When I went into the office on a cloudy day in
February, I was nervous. I had found a pattern of what I wanted on a jewelry
ring dish that I got at Charming Charlie’s.
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| Just BEE! |
Kiel made a special copy of the
picture, then we placed it on my wrist to check the size and placement. After
that, we headed back to Kiel’s tattoo office.
All the tattoo artists had
dedicated spaces in Integrity, and it’s bright and airy in there. A guy was
getting ink added to his sleeve on his left arm as I walked by.
Once I sat down with Kiel in his cool steam-punk industrial-décor
space, we got started. He shaved my wrist to make sure there wasn’t any stray
hairs and he overlaid the copy of the design, which was an outline in purple. He
began mixing his colors and inspecting the needles, and wiping my wrist with antiseptic.
He was gloved and everything was in its place.
It was time! I asked him to touch my wrist so I remembered
how the needle felt. He did, and he began. And ouch Holy heck I forgot how much
it hurt. Quick Kiel distract me! We chatted about his marriage- he had just gotten
married, and I got married 2 years before so we chatted about that, and the
hours a tattooist keeps.
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| I am a warrior...I can handle this! |
I asked him how he got into it- and with him being a
creative person, this seemed a good fit. He started in 2007 with a focus on
bold colors and emphasizing his black and greys.
And I will say, I wasn’t sure
how my piece was going to look , I wanted more bronze and white and gold, but
the shading he did on the body of the bee was magnificent.
Kiel’s favorite tattoo that he did- he’s a Walking Dead fan,
as am I, and he recently tattooed Lucille onto a Negan fan.
After a while, the need didn’t hurt, and I felt quite
elated. It was pretty awesome seeing this shape come into existence on my body. All too soon he was done, just when I was enjoying the adrenaline
rush from it, it was over.
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| To bee or not to bee |
I had a bee on my wrist! A reminder to ‘just be.’ To ‘bee’ in the
moment. Bees have very precise calculations to their flight patterns when they
fly even though it looks random. Plus, bees are crucial to the world's ecosystems.
I do a lot of PR and social media for small businesses and I
always say it seems random but there is a method to the madness- calculations
to the end result.
I identify with bees as messengers, and as a writer, I feel connected.
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| All done! |
My dad jokingly asked me where the stinger was, and I said this was a queen bee.
Or a honeybee working hard.
I now have a fabulous piece of art that will always ‘bee’
with me! Contact Integrity Tattoo for an amazing tattoo of your own.
To follow up, I couldn't swim for two weeks, and I had to keep ointment on it. I also kept smacking it into everything the next couple days, and after the high wore off, it definitely ached. But that soon went away and it healed, leaving a gorgeous original piece of art!
The shop is located at 65 S Lewis Rd, Royersford.
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