Pierces and Pieces of a Woman's Heart
(a short story)

Today i got my last individual pierce at the top of my right ear.  Last in the sense that i ran out of ear.
All the good memories of places, events, people, things were placed in my right ear, one pierce at a time. One city at a time, one season of life at a time.

Today trying to think of what each one stood for, which one, which time; i found that the memories and the scents withstood time's erasures.

On the left ear? Only two pierces above the main earring. One abortion in 1988, one adoption in 1979.
So, that is the losses of life. I shall get a pierce there when my father dies. and one for my mother. But none for the brothers. And most certainly none for the death of a marriage.

That is how i struck up a story-telling intimacy with Inga, the Icelandic 30-something who pierced my ear today. The manager of that dreadful kiosk in the mall. It has been around for as long as i can remember. They have done 4 of my pierces. One for the wedding day, one for each of danny's sons, and now today's pierce.

At first she was busy with paperwork. I recognized her as the 'authority' so i showed her exactly where it must go and how i wanted the exit hole. She asked me where i wanted the second earring after i chose the 18kt white gold. I said it would only be one pierce today. The last one that fits in my right ear and why.

She looked interested so i told her the story of how this woman chose to pierce her life and loves, one at a time. She simply got 'that look'! It is the best way to describe how she clasped her hands together and shook her thin red hair out of her eyes and breathed, “Yes! Oh! Exactly! That is so good!” It hit her at a level one doesn't usually find in a kiosk in the center of suburbia mall.

There is a story to the one from 1978 when i came to Seattle for the first time from Idaho. The white gold pierce from 1985 when all of my cousins got together for my 25th birthday and we DID Hennepin Avenue from one end to the other and closed out White Castle. Like 11 of us Keith cousins. All mom's side of the family. All in Minneapolisat the same time. That was the night I danced with the handsomest man i had ever seen and he bought me a birthday drink and then disappeared.. I always wondered if it was an angel or if Jan&Jen had paid the dude to dance with the ugly birthday girl with such low self esteem. KIDDING! But not really. a low point and a high point all at the same time..

By now, Inga had introduced herself and took hold of my lobe to see where was best. She had me sit and then drew the marks. We talked about pierces and lifestyles and she told me about how her cartilage one hurt so she took it out. How they used to use a regular gun on the nose pierces..
The whole time she is measuring and marking.

She asks, “So tell me why this one is so special?”

Then she looks at me and i am blushing!

“If you can!” she laughs as she smells the scent of a woman. Woman to woman.

I said, “I had a longtime wish come true this week and a special man who fulfilled that like i never imagined. Something i have wanted for about 10 years. He has turned out to be someone I trust and he fulfilled my deepest darkest fantasy.”

By now i am blushing like crazy and i feel my temp rise.. I can only grin foolishly as Inga looks me in the eyes.

She cracks up a bit and says, “Oh, a naughty good memory? I like that!”

This from a skinny little Icelander with light blue eyes and thin red pageboy hair. She shines, though. Through her self. She pats her left butt cheek and says, “I have special tattoos, naughty ones for naughty times!” and waits for my response.

“I think that is neat,” i say, “just on the left side?”

“Yes, that is the side my heart is on,” as she gets a bit teary-eyed.

So i am figuring that she left someone she loved behind or has been loved well too.  Suddenly we are at ease with each other. We both chuckle and she has me turn my head more and get my hair out of the way. We compare red color jobs and it turns out she is really a blonde.

Somehow it seems right to tell her the story of Mrs. Danielson. My 60-something customer who told me the best woman-story one day on her porch as i delivered a parcel to her and admired her cobalt blue earrings. They were a bit unexpected for the woman and i had to comment on them. Inga stops what she is doing and listens. I feel a kindred spirit here.

“Oh, these earrings?” Inez pulled at her ears thoughtfully. “Do you have a minute?”

“Oh heck ayah i do!” i reply, knowing i am going to be rewarded with a story, but not knowing that it would shape me, woman to woman; through future adversity in store for me. I heard the generation of capitalizing WWII in her speech as she begins.

“It was 1945 and i was a newlywed. I married my sweetheart when he came home from The War. I was sitting at my kitchen table waiting for him to come home. He never did. He ran away with another woman. We had been married only 6 months.” Her terse rehearsal and slow delivery spoke of a deep and significant impact.

“So i sat there all night at the kitchen table, crying. My neighbor came in around morning and made a pot of coffee and shook her finger in my face and told me i needed something to get my mind off the bad apple and onto the apple orchard!” She has a grin in her voice and i can imagine the friend doing CPR on an invisible heart attack.

“Right then and there, she got a needle and silk thread and an apple,” Inez pulls at her ears like it was all brand new. “She pierced my ears and then went with me to buy my favorite color in earrings when they healed. Of course, in those days you didn't pierce your ears unless you were a fancy woman.”

I smile and nod, understanding the picture of  the shame washed away in cobalt blue. “Did you marry again?” i wondered.

“Oh, yes, dear, that i did!” and Mrs Inez Danielson shakes her head so the earrings dance in the sunlight. “I buried two husbands and i still have the earrings!” and she giggles like a young woman. Her heart is young. She has turned shame into love and living fully.


Now I tell Inga, “ I thanked her for the story and continued on. It has always moved me the way that women triumph. It validated all those pierces i had done for remembering my life.”

She is fully enrapt. “You tell  it beautifully!” she says. “You are a story teller, too. I will tell give you a story in return when we get this done.”

I can see her gathering herself and then it is all business.

I feel the gun squeezing and she has to do it at a certain angle to get the rim out of the way. I can feel her close and concentrating. She rests her arm on my shoulder to steady it. Her perfume is citrus based.
She does the initial pierce and it doesn't go through! I hear it clinch but not crunch. I feel the metal fold instead of meet. She gets a bit panic stricken and starts to talk. Thinking out loud in what to her is a crisis situation. I almost laugh because i regonize the pattern.

I say, “Inga, no problem, it doesn't hurt, just do it again. Pull it out and try again.”

She visibly has to get it together. She work the post back out and checks the gun for damage. Then she looks at me from where she is preparing another earring cartridge and says, “You are really making me work for my money today!” and grins.

What i am really afraid of is that she will lose her cool and insert a crooked post that i will be stuck with as my premium memory! It is bleeding pretty bad so i remind her, the pro, “Cartilage has few blood vessels, don't worry about it. As long as the exit hole lines up like we marked it, that is all that matters.”

Well, she does it perfectly the second time. Yup; the crunch and squeeze right on time! Inga is estatic and gives me a high and low five.

“Damn i am good!” she sings out with a big grin.

The Japanese tourists behind me giggle with her and move on. Free show is over as i look in the mirror and see the white gold topping the interior of the ear rim. “Perfect!” i say.

She is getting my stuff together. I put in the lower ball post of the now top three. The one closest to the new pierce will not go in for two months, so the hole heals straight.


We get to chatting about pierces vs. tattoos as memory binders. I am thinking of my failed marriage and how i almost had her put the other earring in my left side, right between the deaths i caused. But it is not right.  Waiting for my story, i sound her out only because i cannot talk about it yet.

“You know, Inga, when someone has cancer or AIDS. It is the slow death of a loved one? When do you get a pierce for it? When you find out? When you find out it is incurable? When you get your first remission? your last? Or when your friend has to pick you up to bathe you or put you to bed?”
“A pierce is just for a single outstanding moment in time. What about these other drawn out stories?”

She says immediately, “That is where a tattoo covers the whole story from beginning to end.”

Bingo, girlfriend! Suddenly my day has a depth and a richness that makes my lion man pierce a sacred thing as i intended it from the beginning.

“The colors, the design, the hope, the fading, the death. A quilt, if you like,” Inga tunes into mode.

I recognize that mode, sharpening senses to not miss a thing, a God-thing for this day.

“You know, Liz, there are people in this world that carry you through. The lady i call my stepmom was like that. Just like a mother carries you into this world? Well this woman is special because she carried me through my mom's 5 marriages. Don't get me wrong, my mom is great!” she interrupts herself.

I interrupt her to say with all seriousness, “Inga, some women are meant to love men. They have the capacity to love well and often, some don't. If your mom is like that, that is a beautiful thing!”

I can tell she is hit in the heart. I imagine she has spent time defending her mom's choices and perhaps some of the 'naughty' tattoos are a result of some crazy acting out. i can almost generate this scenario.

“Yes,” she says simply and gets teary-eyed. “Well, my stepmom was diagnosed with cancer. You have to understand that in our language, 'nine' and 'new' mean the same thing. She went a little crazy for a bit and then one day, my mom brought her a quilt.”

I am listening so intenely. i see the two women, jealous for a daughter's affection. Common cause bringing the olive quilt of peace under one roof for three hearts. It is a beautiful trinity.

Inga continues, “The quilt is  a 'nine' square. Nine cats. One in each square with each having 'nine' lives. But really it means also that the nine iis also 'new'. NEW lives to live. A guardian and a promise!”

“Tattoos are like that” she says, “A gift to tell the story of something that has time in it.”

Now it is my turn to get teary-eyed and she and i connect with a handclasp. I thank her for the gift of the story and we hug.

 “I get it.” i say.  “I am not sure if the pierce today is the story or the exchange of stories is the gift!”

What a beautiful experience. I will be wearing his ankle chain soon but the pierce is for me. The darkest, most revised and used fantasy i ever had. All played out in such a different way than i could have ever imagined. That was the real gift to me. To take a fantasy and turn it into a living breathing story with heart and love..

Oh, the tattoo part? Well one day, when the agony has faded from this breaking of union of two becoming one, i will get a tattoo to tell the story.. on my left side, where my heart was broken.