Tattoo ideas: Wingless No More

A friend of mine asked me a long time ago if I could get a tattoo done anywhere, at someone else's expense, and all I had to do was be part of an art gallery or something. I didn't even have to think about telling him I'd get the wings on my back I wanted. It was about then that I realized there was no point in not getting them. I keep wanting them, keep talking about them, but I kept saying "no I'm not gonna do it." I was coming up with other ideas for what to put on my back, trees, flowers a million other things Wings on my upper back before 30.

I've started nailing down the details as well. I originally had hoped for just standard bird type wings across by back, but with all my ideas for my tattoos they wind up evolving. As i started planning it out, looking at pictures I realized that just plain bird wings weren't right. I started thinking of something with more structure, something that leaned more towards my engineering background.

After a while the idea of built wings came to mind. Who else had built wings? Icarus. For those who don't really know the general story (and don't feel like reading through the wikipedia page), Icarus was the son of the great inventor Daedalus. The gist is that his father made him wings, and he didn't listen to the instructions of not flying to close to the sun. Which he wound up doing anyway. The wax that held the wings together melted and he fell from the sky.

Not super pleasant right? But there's another story, one I like that was written to go with it. Cirque Du Soleil's Verakai was written about what happens to Icarus when he falls from the sky. He winds up in this enchanted world where things aren't what they seem and he falls in love. It's quite lovely really. His wings are passed around by the creatures, not sure what to make of them, other than they look like what the butterflies have. Actually, the creature he falls in love with is a caterpillar of sorts who turns into a butterfly of sorts at the end. The whole thing is beautiful.

I like the idea of homemade wings though, just like any airplane geek and engineer, it's making something that we weren't born with. Humans are supposed to grounded, but we've managed to ignore that, to go against it and take to the skies. I love that. It's time I have my own wings.

of course it might yield a change in user names. Wingless Warrior might not be as fitting afterward. Then again I'll probably stay that.

Posted in: tattoo