My First Tattoo

Well, I did it. After 20+ years of saying that one day I would… I finally got a tattoo! I got inked! It’s real — trust that I check every morning to make sure it’s still there. It clearly took me a long time to take the plunge, I just couldn’t decide what to get! It had to meet so many criteria: meaningful, small, classy, and in a spot on my body that wasn’t too obvious. So, what did I get?  Where did I get it? Why did I get it?

I got a family of quail! There are four of them: a dad, a mom, and two chicks. The dad is Nate, the mom is me, and the two chicks are Baer and Mimi. I had the tattoo artist place them over my left ribcage where they will forever live, residing on the side my heart is on. I also got the quail on my ribs so they’re only “on display” when I want them to be. The tattoo is a single needle tattoo, which Tatt Mag says “is… the best choice for those who want their… ink to be more discreet yet sophisticated.” A single needle tattoo “results in a tattoo style that resembles a sketchbook design with very fine lines and shading.” I wanted to go with a single needle design because I desired a very bare bones look. All I wanted was the outline of the four birds on my skin. Voila! It’s perfect.

But why a covey of quail? Quail have always been some of my favorite birds, I simply love them. In our Scottsdale neighborhood, we had so many quail running around. Every late spring and early summer, we would see these new, beautiful families of quail coming out of the nests they made in the succulents and running across the street. The family of quail felt symbolic to me:  we started our family in Scottsdale, both by adopting Mimi and then with the birth of Baer. Like the quail chicks, my little chicks were born in the spring and the summer. And like those quail families, we, too, walked out of our home and through our neighborhood, Dad and Mom keeping the babies safe from harm.