At A Glance Author RogueWriter Contact RogueWriter@bme.anon When It just happened Artist My African Papa! Studio My papa's work room Location Ohio
I've had 7 tattoos, 9 piercing's and my dad has paid for almost each and every one if he hadn't been the one doing the job. Our family took a lot of pride in our Afro-Indian heritage which included tattoos of our clan totems on each family member and total support of Tribal Body Mod..
I some how stopped celebrating those traditions and underestimated their importance when in college. After graduating and attempting to find a "real" job I lopped off my own butt length hair to a short bob, took out all but one cartilage piercing and two "traditional" ear piercing and went off into corporate America.
My dad kept his butt length dreads, my sister their tattoos and piercing's, and I would see people walking around with beautiful nose piercing, and cartilage piercing. Even everyone and their mother with navel piercing! It made me hate my gold sensible hoops and neat bob hair cut.
I felt false and I wasn't happy.
Recently one sister had gauged her ears up, along with two of my good friends. I vowed first I would stop cutting my hair and then as soon as I could braid it I would start the stretching process to get to an 8 gauge lobes maybe more. My hair was down past my collar bone when I showed up at my dad's house with a sterile tapers, niobium 18 gauge rings already in my lobes and a pair of 14 gauge in my hands. He took one look at me smiled and started to set up.
My dad had pierced hundreds, and stretched many ears in Zimbabwe where he was born. So he had an autoclave, gauze, and all the potions needed to help me start. He told me to take a towel and go downstairs and bathe.
I took a warm shower in the bathroom where my dad set up a steaming bowl of cloves, sage and cinnamon to relax my mind. Meditation cannot be underestimated when one is doing Body Modification. Every tattoo I have ever got I remember my father telling me "In through the nose, out through the mouth, think of all beautiful things" I began the process in the shower not knowing how my ears would handle such blatant manhandling.
After I got out of the shower and put on a pair of pale green pajama type scrubs and a hoodie set out for me by my papa, I walked out to where my he was setting up in his work room. My father's work room hold pictures from all over his homeland. Women with large wooden plugs beneath their lips. Men in wrapped sari's with holes large enough to place golf balls through. Both sexes with long thick as fingers, and thin as pencil dreadlocks down to their shoulders, waist's, knees and longer. I sat and thought about the plugs and tunnels and eyelets that I had seen in magazines and online. I remembered the pale pink Pyrex plugs that made me ache for bigger lobes! I looked at my papa's ears with their zero gauge and 2 gauge plugs side by side in both ears.
I watched my father carefully setting out his tools fresh from the auto clave. He had explained to me that because my ears were already pierced that we could go to 14 gauge with minimum problems. He asked if I wanted him to wear latex or non-latex gloves and I laughed. I said he was my dad, he didn't need to wear gloves! He shook his head and placed non-latex gloves on his hands. If you were going to have a successful piercing/tattoo you could never underestimate the positive power of cleansing.
Sufficiently chastised I walked over to a padded barber chair he had set up in a corner.
There was a faint smell of earthy incense and curry along with the bite of rubbing alcohol in the room the lights were bright but somehow not offensive to the eyes. My dad had tied his dreadlocks back with a piece of cloth and was examining my lobes. He asked if I wanted the 2nd set of holes opened again. I looked at him shocked. I hadn't put earrings in them in years...5-6 years to be exact. He pointed out that if I had those open too I could use my smaller gauge jewelry in the 2nd holes. I agreed happily and we set to work.
He had warmed sterile lubricant in a bowl of hot water and had washed and gloved his hands. He informed me he was ready to begin and I smiled as my dad lubed up the taper and slid it through my right lobe with no difficulty. He repeated the same procedure on the left side and I again breathed in and by the exhale he was finished and putting on the beads. He then took some tiny sterilized 18 gauge titanium plugs and slid them into the second holes. He looked at me and asked me if I was ok. I informed him with closed eyes I was ready. He laughed and told me he'd already finished.
He retrieved and held a mirror for me to look at. I smiled wider. My lobes were neither red nor really sore, they were warm but a cool washcloth from my father and some aloe and I forgot they had been done. I know that 14 is not a big deal to other serious BME stretchers, but it is a beginning for me. I have been talking to my friends all day about planning my journey to 8 gauge at least. I have even made plans to go to a piercing conference with my father later this year. These decisions have affected everything from how I look at other people, to what job I want, and who I befriend. If the outside of a person is a doorway into their inner selves I am just starting to see the person they have always wanted to become.