The Experience Itself Was Exactly the Destination I Was After.

A simple 0011 drawn in Riesling font now sits inside my left arm just above the crease of my elbow. I’ve felt compelled to have this piece done for the past two years. It serves as a living numerical ode to our two dogs and two cats.

In 2013, my partner and I adopted a kitten. As part of the agreement we made, I handed the naming rights over to my partner. He named the kitten Zero.

A few months later, we walked into the store to purchase cat food. SCAT (our local Saskatoon cat rescue) was there. There was a particular kitten who no one seemed to be interested in, and yet I couldn’t get my eye off her. This time, my partner was the one who encouraged we pursue adoption. Once the process began, my heart immediately established a connection with hers. Later that day, we applied for her. We named her Nada.

Three years later, we felt the pulse to expand our little family. We brought home two mixed German Shepherd puppies. Ace and Uno began to infuse innocence, adventure, and a raw texture of playfulness into our lives. Their joy was contagious – especially throughout the sleepless nights of potty training.

It All Came Back for Me.

When Nada passed away suddenly, I grieved like I’d never grieved before. A part of me had changed. It was as if every morsel of sorrow I had bypassed up to that point had now caught up to me. All that I had once *neatly* parked in a safe corner of my psyche was now emerging. It was demanding acknowledgement and seeking compassion.

Within a matter of days, the grief ushered me into a provocative encounter with a deeper level of lucidity. Every time we said goodbye to a loved one. Each moment I had abandoned a part of myself. Every nuanced way I had neglected someone in my life. Any time I crossed a genuine boundary – my own or someone else’s. It all came back for me. Nada’s transition accelerated the retrieval of the lost aspects of my whole self.

The Practitioner is Carved.

The day before I got the tattoo, I was working on an article called Creativity in Motion – the Architecture of Creative Fluency. I kept coming back to this core idea that to truly live (not just produce, but live) as a prolific writer, one must be willing to devote to the experience of creation itself. As I worked with the article more, another central principle kept revealing herself.

This was something I had experienced, spoken on, practiced, and danced with many times before: As writers, we have to be open to be transformed and taught by the creative process itself. In other words, the practitioner of the craft is carved just as much as she carves.

Trusting in the Prayer Itself.

As the tattoo artist and I spoke, a palpable resonance entered the room. An entire wall (floor to ceiling) of her corner of the tattoo studio was made of windows. I felt fortunate to be there. I felt present. I felt relaxed, profoundly natural. The entire process – from arriving at the studio to placing the transfer paper on my arm to ‘settling up’ at the front – it all felt insanely fulfilling. This was my first piece, so novelty was definitely in the room, but not in a giddy kind of way. It was an intrigue, an invitation deeper into my expression, and it wasn’t something I had to think about or psyche myself up for. It just was.

I told her how I tend to go vasovagal when I have bloodwork done, but the last two times I had blood drawn, I was ok. We prepped a cool compress and set my water bottle and Scooby-Doo fruit snacks to the side of the table. I assured her I would be able to keep my blood pressure up during the process (or, at the very least, communicate otherwise).

As the needle first touched my skin, we began talking about the consistent momentum created by honoring our daily commitments in life and how influential those become when paired with the rarer instances of epic proportions (the monumental, visible miracles – the moments where we jump off metaphorical cliffs and make big changes in one instance).

I asked her what one of her most powerful pivotal moments had been, and she shared with me a decision she had made a few years ago. My whole body filled with tingles as I listened to her story.

Could Pain Be Pleasure? This is About the Bounty of the Quest.

We laughed about the allure of chasing outcomes and end points, and that’s when I told her that (coincidently) the piece I was currently writing was focusing on the appreciation of the creative process itself – on fully being there (truly loving) the experience.

As the tattoo needle danced along my arm, she asked me how I was feeling. I laughed a little as I shared what I had realized: I was given this opportunity to practice enjoying the experience, fully being there for the entirety of the tattooing process.

As my brain delivered me a few breadcrumbs of excitement (these breadcrumbs included flashes of what the final “0011” would look like by the end of the hour), I drew my focus and attention back into my body in each moment. I softened my breath even further, I chatted, and attempted to deliberately etch this experience into my subconscious as a rewarding one.

I wondered if I could I focus on the scratching sensation and enjoy it. My body coded this as pain, but could it also be seen as pleasure? Could the dopamine release actually be available during the process – not a half hour later when I snapped a photo in the elegant French selfie mirror that was leaning on the wall on the opposite side of the studio… but right there as I lay on the table while Kate buzzed above my elbow? It turns out it could.

I was given the exact translatable opportunity I needed to deeply practice what I was exploring in the context of my most recent article – being an artist for the richness of the voyage. How sweet does that make it all, really? When the outcome (whatever the result) is simply the cherry on top of the creative walk, we move differently. We create differently.

Lessons from the Cold.

This is something I practiced every morning in the shower as I turn the temperature down from steaming to “as cold as it will go” for the final three minutes. Above and beyond the sweetness of the subsequent dopamine arc, those three minutes were my training. They had allowed me to access deeper levels of power in the gym – even with glimpses of the woman I was becoming, the burn of the final reps had become the goal.

This approach allowed me to create (and sustain) momentum, and it was quickly becoming my access point for true fulfillment. It was the same source of momentum I implemented in my creative process. In fact, it was the same momentum that spanned across all aspects of my life.

Reaching My Destination.

Once the tattoo was complete, it felt official: I wasn’t chasing outcome anymore. I was actively in pursuit of the thrills of experience itself.

Call it wink from God if you like, but getting this tattoo turned out to be exactly the destination I was after.