April 19, 2007

I have come to realize that one of the primary purposes of my recent journey was to restructure my usual ways of handling pain and loss. To wit: instead of holing up in an apartment with a suitable quantity of alcohol and bad food, I was out on the road, pedaling from place to place. Admittedly, I did hole up in a few motels for several days along the way, and on at least one occasion this holing up was accompanied by mini-mart beer and hand-delivered bad food. That was early on, and it quickly became apparent that such behavior was not at all compatible with actually getting out the door and onto the trike. Somewhere in Oregon, I made the conscious decision to put the bottle down for good, and while I’ve slipped up occasionally since my trek ended in September, by and large I’ve been successful.

Which is a good thing, because I find myself, once again, in the kind of situation that I formerly attempted to remedy with liberal doses of hydrocarbon anesthesia. Granted: I’ve picked up smoking again, for the first time since 1996, but I’m not terribly worried about it because when I did quit, I did so out of lack of interest. I had the same half-pack of American Spirits on top of my television for two weeks before I realized that I had quit, which suggests to me that I am mercifully free of the physiological nicotine triggers that make quitting such an ordeal for most people. A couple of times since then, in times of stress, I've bought a pack, smoked half of it, and flushed the rest. It’s all in my head…a combination of nervous fidgeting with a bit of a kick from the tobacco which, when I’ve had enough, I fully expect I’ll be able to do without.

That said, I have picked up another “habit,” if it can be called such: piercings. I’ve got three at the moment, two you can see while I'm wearing business attire and one you can’t, and this evening I’ll have two more you can’t see. A common question, when I reveal this new predilection, is the basic “Why?”

In my early 20s, when I was a long-haired black-wearing pagan-style person, I had five ear piercings, three in my left ear and two in my right. My original plan, when I left on my trek, was to commemorate its conclusion with a tattoo that involved cycling-related imagery and an indication of the miles I had pedaled. I decided against that when I dropped the coast-to-coast plan, and, in its stead, got my ears re-done by a professional piercer, at the same Santa Barbara tattoo shop that did my mother’s ink. I’ve now got a 12-gauge titanium segment ring in each ear (seen here, although mine are natural, not colored), and they represent the 2,000 miles I did ride, as well as the reclamation of a part of myself I’d put aside long ago.

Then, within a few days of getting my ears done, I went a little further and got a frenum piercing ( NSFPWPANSV)*. That one was less of a reclamation and more of an expansion of self. The nature of the piercing accompanied a more fully-realized expression of my sexuality, plus a bit of aesthetic kink, and a celebration of the changes my body was undergoing as I continued to lose weight. I’d thought about doing such things awhile ago, but it was hard to decorate my body when I found it to be so misshapen and unappealing.

I had decided that when I reached a target weight of 175 (down from a high of 245), I would have both nipples done. I hit 185 yesterday morning, and although I could wait another five weeks or so, recent events in my life have made a compelling case for getting these done now.

There are really three parts to the piercing process, analogous to the tattooing process. There’s the piercing itself, which produces pain, endorphins, and a bit of blood. Afterwards, there is a period of healing, which can also be painful, depending on what sort of piercing you’ve had. Finally, there is the ongoing presence of the jewelry. For me, each part of this process serves a different purpose.

There are hard lessons I have learned very recently, about where I actually am in my personal development and what the patterns in my life have been, particularly regarding intimate relationships. I’ll be thinking about those lessons while I’m in the chair. Every time I need to clean the new piercings and the jewelry, I’ll be thinking about what I’ve learned, and renewing my determination to change. Once the piercings have healed, and I swap out the initial piercing jewelry for permanent, more decorative pieces, they will serve as ongoing reminders of the deliberate changes I have made in my life and how I live it. Nothing says Don’t ever do that again quite like sharp surgical steel through sensitive body parts.

So, in a couple of hours, I will fight pain with pain, and write intention in my flesh.

LATER:

That. Was. Amazing.

I'd read that this was one of the more painful piercings, and it was indeed...but so worth it. They look great, and, as always, Nic Ferrante did her usual precise and careful job.

She also pointed out something that I hadn't really put a name to, when I outlined the three parts of the piercing process above. The second part--the healing process--involves caring for wounds, which, at this time in my life, is singularly apropos.

I am a very happy fellow right now.

*Not safe for places where penises are not safely viewed.