Harmonopoly 28: Tattoo for Sasha Banks
in sixty-four point type atop the top line
So let me tell you about my new tattoo:
This photo is a bit misleading, as the entire tattoo isn’t new. Look a little closer, friend: the lantern design in the middle is faded. I don’t want to talk very much about that tattoo. The circumstances from which it was borne are no longer relevant to my life, and the conversation is best left at that. But it is still a part of my body, whether its old meaning has relevance to my current life or not, and it is too large to hide or ignore. I realized recently that I either needed to cover it up, have it removed, or reclaim it.
I had no desire to get rid of it. I think it’s pretty, and I am proud of the fact that I designed it. So I texted my friend Mandy and asked if she wanted to finally pull the trigger on those tattoos we’d been talking about, and here we are. Merry Christmas, Harmony finally has her Mountain Goats tattoo!
Song for Sasha Banks is a deep cut in the Mountain Goats catalog-- though to be fair, their entire catalog is pretty much deep cuts except for No Children, a song John Darnielle gently chastised us for begging him to play at the concert I attended. He asked us if we thought Jimmy Buffet plays Margaritaville first thing at every show. The fact that No Children is the Margaritaville of the Mountain Goats oeuvre should tell you everything you need to know about the band, and the people who love them. But I digress.
Sasha asked the Mountain Goats to write a song for her by listening to Beat the Champ and tweeting “where’s my song, Mountain Goats” at the band, and it worked. Sasha Banks also reacted to getting screwed over at WrestleMania by walking away from WWE and asking Siri to tell her where modern-day wrestling god Meiko Satomura trained in Japan, and then Sasha went there and wrestled her, because she’s Sasha fucking Banks. She deserves the world, and John Darnielle realized that, and wrote her a fitting anthem about fighting hard and doing right by your own truth no matter the cost.
I first heard this song when I was on a pilgrimage of my own, though nothing as grand as Banks’s trip to Japan. On June 18th, 2018, I was driving aimlessly to the ocean. In a span of two weeks, my husband had moved out and I had lost my job. I had attended my first pride festival as a queer person, where I had nervously hidden behind a gazebo for 45 minutes until I got up the gumption to buy a tiny ranbow flag. I was publishing my work for the first time, and learning how to navigate the complexities of having a vulnerable public persona. I was performing at improv nights and open mics to a mix of scattered applause, ardent cheerleading, and puzzled silence.
To say I was at loose ends was an understatement- I was a ball of manic energy, confused and terrified, gasping for breath on the precipice of what? I had no idea. All I knew was I had two weeks before my new job started, it had been years since I had seen the ocean, and if I spent one more day getting drunk on my couch in front of wrestling videos things were going to get dark in an irredeemable way. So I threw a bag of dirty clothes and a cooler full of beer into the trunk of my car and started driving.
I made it eight hours until my exhaustion overcame me. I pushed myself one more mile to a Holiday Inn and entered the lobby, then talked the person at the desk into letting me and my arm full of clothes and my cell phone charger have an empty room.
I laid down on my rented bed, too wired and jumpy to sleep, and started idly scrolling through Twitter. That was where I saw the announcement of a new song from my favorite band, a tribute to one of my favorite wrestlers. My dizzy mind seized on to this information like a compass; surely it meant something that this song was released today, in the middle of my unplanned road trip. Mountain Goats songs have carved meaning into my life for a long time, exhorting me to survive another year and stay alive, just stay alive. I decided then and there that I would wait and listen to the song when I finally reached the ocean, because it would be able to tell me what I needed to do.
Sixteen hours later, I was on a beach in North Carolina, a walkable distance from the AirB&B I’d booked while I was driving. The air was warm and kind, the beach was sunny and hot and salty, and the ocean frothed and slapped the sand in front of me almost like a taunt. Ageless, limitless, mysterious and vast.
It occurred to me that the reason I had not seen the ocean in years was because I did not want people to see my fat body in a bathing suit. That I had been married to a man who did not like the beach, and I’d simply waived my right to visit it rather than discussing a compromise. I thought of my styrofoam cooler full of beer, and my father and his own cooler of beer, and his father before him, and what it means to be from a family where everybody fights and nobody gets divorced and nobody leaves Ohio but everybody screams into the sky after one too many Canadian Club boilermakers at a funeral.
I thought about walking into the ocean, closing my eyes, and letting go. For a minute-- a terrible moment, a moment that still salts the back of my throat --I thought that might be best. Better than untangling the unstable mess I’d made. A fitting swan song for me, a dummy in the first degree who had blown her whole life up for reasons she didn’t entirely even understand.
Instead, I played the song I had been waiting to hear.
I listened to the song on loop for...I’m not sure, but it must have been hours. I listened to it and I thought about Sasha Banks, and how hard she had struggled throughout her life to care for the people she loved while following her heart. I thought about how she let wrestling be the art that guided her to a larger purpose, a higher connection, the creature that she was eventually proud to become. I listened and I thought about what it takes to find your spot.
I let the sun glow on my cheeks and belly and arms and legs, exposed by a bikini I never thought I’d have the guts to wear in public. I soaked it up. I took deep breaths, in and out. I waded ankle-deep into the water, felt the gentle tug of undertow on my shins.
If I give up on myself, I will never find my spot. I will never know who I am supposed to be. All I or anyone else will ever know is who I was. We will never know what could have been possible. What still is possible. That isn’t good enough.
As I listened through the song one final time, a lyric caught my attention. A statement of purpose for the work I saw ahead of myself. I took a photo of the ocean and posted it to Twitter, alongside that lyric. Publicly it was a bit of a humblebrag-- look at me, enjoying the ocean with these sweet jams! --but privately it was a promise to myself. From here on in I would be out of the closet for good. I would put the time and effort into my writing that it deserved. I would dress how I wanted and do what I wanted and mark every inch between myself and my final destination in a fire that would burn every doubt and doubter away.
I stayed at the ocean for three days, then I got bored and went home. I started my new job. I also chopped all my hair off, dyed it blue, bought some button-up shirts and bowties and started aggressively marketing my work to anyone who might read it.
This year I am going to be making some changes in my life that will be scary and new, but good. As I contemplate those changes, I am experiencing fear and exhaustion and doubt. So I got this lyric tattooed on me, because I will need to remember how I felt that day I stared out at the ocean and decided it was worth giving myself a real shot to see what I could become someday. I want the words to guide me and the lantern to burn and light our way together.
I have to keep going, and so I will. Everybody’s got their own spot. I’m going to find mine.
