Rachel using her skills and drawing out the sleeve
I had an amazing experience with Rachel from Exotic Eye Tattoo. I got my first three tattoos from a shop on Clark Street in Chicago with the first one in 1988. My last tattoo was in 1993. I’ve wanted to get another and for years have wanted to get sleeves done; however, I just haven’t been able to put together in my head what I wanted.
Family members have gone to Rachel, and they recommended that I see her. We had an amazing discussion, just looked at photos and started going from there. Originally, we were thinking all the areas that I’ve dove but that got confusing for all the different sea life and honestly, as we kept looking at the pictures from our Alaskan waters then we decided to keep it Alaskan sea life.
A lot of things have changed from my first tattoo which includes the artists shifting from coil guns to rotary guns with rechargeable batteries! Gone are the days with the artist hammering away with the coils going. Other crazy things have happened too! I’m talking about electronics! Yeah, I’m a nerd but this blew me away. I told Rachel about walking into the tattoo shop in 1988 and all the tattoo images were on boards hanging from the walls on hinges so that you could go through them. Some of the artists better work was displayed more prominently on the walls. Also, I had no clue of anything beyond American Traditional and didn’t know much about that.
For my session with Rachel, I emailed and texted the shop various pictures and such so that she could look at them. She took the photos and transformed them into amazing art with her iPad and truly her mastery as an artist.
One of the best parts is that Rachel isn’t heavy handed with the gun and that allowed me some time to just climb into my head. It’s been a while since I’ve had hours to do that and honestly, I haven’t been in a place to be able to spend a couple hours in my head.
Going back a ways, I found that I was doing a lot of running, cycling, and other exercise to not only help me feel good (love those hormones called endorphins and that runners high) but to also many times I believe was avoidance. Avoidance from the frustrations of life and everything that comes with it.
It was when I was training for my first 49K (celebrating turning 49 years old) that I really started dialing in that these longer runs were all mental and not so much body as the shorter races. I still though, didn’t really climb around inside the noggin.
I think it was in the late Spring of 2019 when I found “Running with the Mind of Meditation,” Lessons for Training Body and Mind, By: Sakyong Mipham, Narrated by: Neil Hellegers that I really started grasping more ideas about meditation and working more on my thoughts.
To celebrate our birthdays, a long time and really good friend of mine, asked about having an “Epic Race.” I had planned on racing the way I spent the last year training which was running with my hydration vest, listing to audio books, and going at a chill pace. My friend on the other hand “dropped the gauntlet” the night before so I dumped everything I could and raced as lite as possible. No phone, no books, no music, just me…
Well, thankfully, I had Sakyong Mipham helping give me ideas of things to contemplate and how to start enjoying my journey of mindfulness. That was a solid day of introspection and I fell in love with it!
I haven’t had much of a chance to do any since and my needle therapy with Rachel brought me back to some good places! On top of that, Rachel is an awesome conversationalist and help give you things to contemplate.
See you on the trails or on the river bank soon!
ta RACHEL
Getting into my head
How long it has been
Book that I read while running on mediati
How I used avoidance through running
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