I got my first tattoo by headlamp light in a canvas covered platform tent in the Adirondack mountains. A few friends and I sat in a circle on the old wooden floor, surrounded by candles, and listening to the rain pitter pat on the taught canvas above our heads. Some of them I had known since I was 7 years old, some were newer friends. Some I still am close with, and others have faded into warm memories and an annual exchange of “Happy Birthday!” Facebook posts.

I was either one or two years out of camp, I really can’t recall, so I was 15 or 16 years old. I wasn’t old enough yet to work at camp but my friends were, so I was visiting for a bit, helping repair tents and stoves in the hike house by day and running wild by night. Mimi, a great artist then and an even greater artist now, had been teaching herself how to do stick-and-poke tattoos. A manual form of tattooing in which a needle is dipped in ink and then poked into the skin creating a small dot. In order to create an image this process must be repeated hundreds of times, often over parts that have already been punctured, and creates a combination of aching pain and sharp pricks that is rather unpleasant and definitely more painful than tattoos done with a tattoo gun.

Nestled in the concave spot between by ankle bone and heel on the inside of my left foot is a small Om symbol. When you look closely you can see each individual dot. It’s faded a little and has started to look like someone took an eraser to it, lightly smudging the lines. Friends ask “Are you going to get it touched up?” I wouldn’t dare.

That’s where the aesthetic comes into conflict with the archival. Since that chilly summer night I’ve gone months at a time without noticing or thinking about the Om on my ankle. Then, in the shower, or in bed, or in from of the mirror it will catch my eye and, for a moment, I am back in that tent listening to the rain drops ricochet.

As Mimi methodically dipped the needle into the ink and then into my ankle, repeating the process over and over, she found a rhythm that matched that of the rain. Just as the final product was art, the act itself was an intimate performance that, as an anthropology geek, I can not help but parallel with the coming of age rituals of the Maori and the Koita. Our markings brand us a tribe and, although no longer as close as we once were, we are forever linked.

In the five or so years that have passed, I have picked up two more tattoos, both with their own stories, both hidden from view, both time capsules to a moment and a place that I want to carry with me.