Three Little Birds

Sister Tattoo!

I get the most questions about this tattoo and it has the best story of all of my tattoos so I figured why not lead off my inaugural, grand re-opening post with a little FAQ about our tattoo.

Who: Lindsay, Leslie and Hilary, duh.

What: Three little birds. One going an opposite way and two going the same way.

When: 5-2-2009 (I actually had to look that up in the embedded pic info because I had no idea). I usually say "Right after Hilary's graduation party for her graduation from St. Joe."

Where: Well, it's on our inner left wrist. But we also got them done at Artistic Skin Designs shop on the Westside of Indianapolis.

Why: The why varies depending on who I'm telling and why they want to know.

Simple answer is that we wanted to get tattoos because we love each other and feel a strong bond of sisterhood and this is a constant reminder of this.

Longer/extended answer is that we had been talking about getting matching tattoos for a while. I was the only one with tattoos but both my sisters had been interested in getting them. I would consider Leslie the most "picky" of us when it comes to plans, endeavors, etc. in life, so we told Leslie to figure out where and what she wanted and Hilary and I would weigh in because we didn't care as much what the final design was, as long as it wasn't hideous. We emailed ideas and pictures back and forth for a while before we finally found this bird design. Funny enough it came from a funeral home website logo! When we had the tattoo artist draw it up he suggested flipping one of the birds to go a different direction -- that sounded fun and random and would differentiate us from a funeral home so we said yes. Leslie chose the inside of the left wrist which frankly shocked me. I figured she would want it some place a little more hidden since she is an elementary school teacher. But she said nope and that she usually wears a watch that sort of covers it. You'd also be surprised by the amount of people who don't look at the inside of your wrist. Weird, but true.

Fancy version of the answer is stuff I've made up over the years which is mostly based in truth but we never really talked about it explicitly when we were deciding what to get but mostly rings true for me at least. One of our collective favorite songs is Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. It's a nice tune and has some powerful lyrics and overall messages. The key one being "Don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing is gonna be alright." All three of us endeavor to NOT worry about things (it works and doesn't work to a great degree based on us individually, situationally and contextually). Basically a "Hakuna Matata" theory of life. I also say we chose doves because they are symbols of peace and we're all basically pacifists; maybe more so me than Leslie or Hilary, but generally speaking none of us really care for violence as a means. Lastly, I sometimes say that we got it right after Hilary graduated from college and that three birds flying away is symbolism for the fact that we are all now adults who have "flown the coop" of our dad's house.

The other funny question I get is "Why is one flying the wrong way?" or "Who is the one flying the wrong way?" Sometimes I say it's Leslie because she's the airhead of the group. Sometimes I say it's Hilary because she's the clueless one who has more book smarts than street smarts. Or sometimes I say it's me because I'm the weirdest and I march/fly to the beat of my own drum. Sometimes I say for no particular reason. Just depends on how funny I'm feeling :)

So there you go! Transcribed history of our (first) sister tattoo!