01/08/2022
My first and last tattoo…
I’ve had this poem by Nayyirah Waheed on my mind for years:
I am mine.
before I am anyone else’s.
My grandmother, Marian Tryphenia McIntosh Dean passed away in 2017. She was everything you could want from a grandma: loving, generous, funny, and willing to give presents and other joys that my parents didn’t allow me to have. She also was a badass career executive in public adult education in a time when Black women were expected and discouraged from having education, careers or any decent amount of power.
I’d thought about getting the poem as a tattoo for so long, but the idea didn’t feel complete until I decided to get it in her slightly messy, genteel cursive that I saw all the time on the yellow legal pads that she was forever taking notes on.
My grandmother, mother and I share the same beauty mark on the left leg. It moved down a few inches with every generation.
The house I grew up in had a magnolia tree in front. I always loved seeing it bloom. Magnolia trees or more specifically the flowers, are known as symbols of endurance and perseverance all around the world, and certainly notable and rightfully associated with the South from the movie Steel Magnolias.
2021 was the worst year of my life and I know I’m not alone in that sentiment. So getting this at the end of year has made me feel that I’m starting a new chapter really owning caring for myself in deep, enduring ways that honor my past and create hope for the future.
