The feather on my arm

While playing pickleball at the public town court the other day, I began noticing something beyond volleys, dings and serves. More visiting players arrived as the weather warmed, bringing with them not only different playing styles but also colorful tattoos. They seemed to belong mostly to a younger generation than mine.

One woman especially caught my attention. An advanced pickleball player, she wore an intricate ivy design peeking across her back just above her waist. It was surprisingly graceful, more like a botanical illustration than what I had once imagined a tattoo to be. I found myself wondering what story it told.

My earliest memory of tattoos was quite different. I associated them with sailors. A tattoo of Popeye flexing on a muscular forearm — or a faded image of a scantily clad woman —seemed to belong to a rough world far removed from my own. That image stayed with me for years since childhood.

Today, tattoos are seen everywhere. Our town's Main Street even has a business devoted to tattoo removal. I often pass the shop and wonder if there are enough tattooed people to support the business. If removing a tattoo is painful and expensive, why do so many people get one in the first place? And what changes later that makes them want to erase it?

Our own family encountered that question years ago. One summer our daughter came home from college with a small tattoo on her back. Naturally, we asked why. Her answer was simple: It was an expression of her own identity. By then she was an adult, and although my husband and I did not fully understand her decision, we respected it. Our conversation ended there, but my curiosity did not stop with it.

History tells us that tattoos are hardly a modern fashion. For thousands of years, people across the world have used them to signify belonging, protection, faith, status, love, remembrance and sometimes even punishment. What I notice today, however, is their remarkable artistry. Some are bold murals across the back; others are so discreet they seem almost like whispered secrets. Small or bold tattoos, colorful or black ink only, the human body has become a living canvas.

Among people of my own generation, tattoos remain relatively uncommon, though I occasionally notice the faded traces of old ones on aging skin. Those faint outlines seem to tell stories of another time, another self.

Then one hot mid-morning at the pickleball courts, my friend Gail made an unexpected suggestion.

"We should have a tattoo party." To my own surprise, I agreed.

A few days later, out came sheets of temporary tattoos — birds, flowers, feathers, vines and delicate designs of every kind. One by one we decorated ourselves between games. I chose a small feather for my right arm. Some men joined our tattoo party. Soon everyone was laughing, comparing tattoos and proudly displaying their new artwork before returning to the courts.

For a little while, we looked like people our grandchildren might recognize.

We were not rebellious teenagers.

We were not drunken sailors on a distant and foreign dock.

We were not making a political statement.

We were simply a group of older pickleball players enjoying a hot summer morning together.

The best part is that when the day was over, our tattoos could simply be washed away.

Perhaps that is the perfect tattoo for my generation — one that celebrates the joy of the moment without asking for a lifetime commitment.

Shin Freedman is a retired academic who now writes about aging, solitude, technology and the quiet revolutions of modern life.