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smackenzieMy name is Sparrow Duchesne, and I have some magic.
It's not as exciting as it sounds - a lot of people do. Most of the time it's something like a random little skill, or a sense or a feeling. I knew a girl in college who could make a tiny flame dance on her palm. It was a pretty party trick, but a pretty useless one. She couldn't even light a cigarette off it. You can learn magic, like you can learn anything, and because magic is a language, learning it is no different from learning any other language. But to be really good, you need a natural aptitude.
Binary code, because it's essentially a language of ones and zeros, is particularly susceptible to magical fluctuations and tampering. I've been told it's hard enough to write good, stable code in the first place, never mind good, stable code that will resist magical manipulation. Technomancy is a big field.
I'm not a technomancer. I'm a tattoo artist. This is where my little magic comes in handy, because the thing I can do is calm people down and soothe a rattled nerve.
It's mostly unconscious. Otherwise, everything I know I've taught myself, which is to say, I know a lot of the small charms and spells that most people know. Once a week I leave a bowl of bread and milk by my back door so the brownies won't mess with my car or spoil my milk or let rodents eat my garden. When I was growing up, everyone knew someone who'd seen and tried to capture a squonk. Billy Talmadge's brother even got a picture, which Billy brought to school with great fanfare, and which turned out to be a picture of a wet burlap sack. But we believed they existed. They just didn't like having their picture taken.
I've never seen one. I still believe they exist.
I live and work in a small college town in the beautiful south. I own a little house for myself and a little house that's been converted into my tattoo studio, Suzume Tattoos. "Suzume" is the Japanese word for sparrow, and even though I have no Japanese ancestry at all, I apprenticed at a studio run by a very funny, very talented, and very supportive tattoo artist named Jonatha, whose mother was Japanese and whose father wasn't. When I opened my own place I wanted to pay tribute to all the help and opportunities she'd given me.
Suzume Tattoos has a tiny room I convered into a meditation space, in case someone wants or needs a minute of peace before going under the needle. Just because I can calm a nervous client doesn't mean they all know that, and it doesn't mean they all trust me. The little house's kitchen is still a kitchen, the bathroom is still a bathroom (for us as well as the clients, because sometimes after you've worked on someone for four hours, they need the toilet), and the upstairs bedroom is now storage and crash space. There's a futon and a nightstand and a small dresser with sheets and pillows and blankets, for anyone who needs a place to sleep. I had an extension built onto the back of the house for an office/supply room, which also holds a lightbox and copy machine and a computer and printer, for research. (Because of the constant problems with keeping code secure, very few people are willing to put sensitive information online - technomancers charge a great deal for spelling one's laptops or desktop computers, never mind keeping a company's servers safe, and as a consequence the fees are high. But there's some good visual reference to be found.) The rest of the first floor - the living room/dining room and bedroom - are now the waiting room/reception area, the little meditation room, and the actual studio.
It's a single big space, divided by judicious placement of bookshelves, cabinets, and curtains. Every so often a client will need absolute privacy, of the kind that comes with being able to close a door. It's not an easy request to accommodate, but we can take a single appointment for a block of time, so it's just the client and an artist in the studio.
There are two other tattoo artists who work with me. (I can't think of them as working for me. They effectively rent space from me and set their own hours and their own prices. We're friends.) Kona took a boat to the mainland from Hawaii about ten years ago, and he does the most beautiful abstract black and white work I've ever seen. (Flights are expensive, especially over water. A ship between the West Coast and Hawaii means a long trip, but you can do it for less money than flying. Flying over land is another matter. It has something to do with the power of earth. It's more arcane knowledge than I need to know.) I say "Hawaiian" and most people expect a native Hawaiian, and while he is a native in the sense that his family has been there since just before WW1, he's a white boy with white-boy dreads and an affinity for water.
The other artist is Maya, who moved here from Texas with her boyfriend, and whose specialty is portraits and realistic color work. She's also very good, and equally importantly, I like her as a person. She came to work at Suzume Tattoos nine months ago, when my colleague Rachael decided to travel for a year. I told Rae when she left that she could always come back - I would always have a chair for her - but it's been two months since I heard from here, and I don't know if she even wants to come back here. Kona was convinced she was interested in me, and that was one reason she left. I think he was wrong. In fact, I know he was wrong.
I have parents I almost never talk to, an older sister I almost never talk to, an ex I talk to more than I would have expected, and a lovely neighbor who stress-bakes. My grandmother Dolly, my mother's mother, calls me once a month to tell me to call my mother, and not to listen to anything my mother says. Grandma Dolly is on my side. Grandma Dolly might like me better than her own daughter. My mother, bless her heart, has a knack for alienating people. Her own sister, my Aunt Donnie, almost never talks to her. And yet she's managed to find and keep a group of friends, and as far as I can tell, my father still loves her.
There were several years when I didn't speak to my parents at all. I went off to art school, which was an acceptable use of my time, but I became a tattoo artist, which wasn't. And I came out as a lesbian - at the time I thought I was bisexual, but my parents wouldn't even understand what that meant and I didn't want to have to explain - which was actually ok to some people in their social circle. But my mother wanted a son-in-law and grandbabies from both her daughters, and the fact that I could adopt or have a child through artificial insemination wasn't good enough for her. I was a rebellious girl and did everything I could think of to make it crystal clear that I wasn't my sister and I wasn't my parents, and I would do what I wanted. Eventually they had enough, and in retrospect I'm not sure I entirely blame them.
So I didn't talk to them for a long time. I apprenticed in Jonatha's studio, I got more ink, I got involved with a girl who was bad for me, I extricated myself from her life and swore off girls and boys. (I dated a few boys in art school, and even now I wonder if someday I might in fact end up married to man who will give my mother the second son-in-law she seems to desperately want.) I worked, I partied, I traveled. I started to think about opening my own place. I had some contact with my sister, but our phone conversations were always a little stiff and awkward, because she wanted to tell me to call our parents and I didn't want to hear it. I wanted my mother to apologize for calling me a disappointment and an embarrassment. My mother wanted me to give up my weird friends and my tacky profession and do what my sister had done - get a nice white collar job, meet a nice white collar boy, plan a nice wedding and a nice future.
Magic is a fickle thing, and while I could touch a nervous client's arm and relax them enough so they could sit still for a tattoo and not faint, I couldn't do anything to get my mother to chill out. I don't think my particular little talent works on relatives.
When Grandpa Harb died - my mother's father - Aunt Donnie called to tell me and to suggest I use it as an opportunity to mend fences with my parents. I went to the funeral out of respect for Grandma Dolly, and because I loved my grandpa. My mother did too. So we started talking.
And where was my father? In his heart, on my side. He just wants me to be happy. And if that means inking people for a living in a little college town, so be it. But he'll never say that in front of my mother.
So that's my life. I'm tall like my father's people and fair like my mother's people, and I have no idea where the little big of magic comes from. No one knows if it's hereditary or not. Not every manifestation is as pleasant as mine, so for all I know my mother has it too, but it's not the kind of magic anyone would choose to have. It's not something I'm ever going to ask, because having some magic isn't respectable, and respectability is very important to my mother. It's just not important to me.
words: 1706
It's not as exciting as it sounds - a lot of people do. Most of the time it's something like a random little skill, or a sense or a feeling. I knew a girl in college who could make a tiny flame dance on her palm. It was a pretty party trick, but a pretty useless one. She couldn't even light a cigarette off it. You can learn magic, like you can learn anything, and because magic is a language, learning it is no different from learning any other language. But to be really good, you need a natural aptitude.
Binary code, because it's essentially a language of ones and zeros, is particularly susceptible to magical fluctuations and tampering. I've been told it's hard enough to write good, stable code in the first place, never mind good, stable code that will resist magical manipulation. Technomancy is a big field.
I'm not a technomancer. I'm a tattoo artist. This is where my little magic comes in handy, because the thing I can do is calm people down and soothe a rattled nerve.
It's mostly unconscious. Otherwise, everything I know I've taught myself, which is to say, I know a lot of the small charms and spells that most people know. Once a week I leave a bowl of bread and milk by my back door so the brownies won't mess with my car or spoil my milk or let rodents eat my garden. When I was growing up, everyone knew someone who'd seen and tried to capture a squonk. Billy Talmadge's brother even got a picture, which Billy brought to school with great fanfare, and which turned out to be a picture of a wet burlap sack. But we believed they existed. They just didn't like having their picture taken.
I've never seen one. I still believe they exist.
I live and work in a small college town in the beautiful south. I own a little house for myself and a little house that's been converted into my tattoo studio, Suzume Tattoos. "Suzume" is the Japanese word for sparrow, and even though I have no Japanese ancestry at all, I apprenticed at a studio run by a very funny, very talented, and very supportive tattoo artist named Jonatha, whose mother was Japanese and whose father wasn't. When I opened my own place I wanted to pay tribute to all the help and opportunities she'd given me.
Suzume Tattoos has a tiny room I convered into a meditation space, in case someone wants or needs a minute of peace before going under the needle. Just because I can calm a nervous client doesn't mean they all know that, and it doesn't mean they all trust me. The little house's kitchen is still a kitchen, the bathroom is still a bathroom (for us as well as the clients, because sometimes after you've worked on someone for four hours, they need the toilet), and the upstairs bedroom is now storage and crash space. There's a futon and a nightstand and a small dresser with sheets and pillows and blankets, for anyone who needs a place to sleep. I had an extension built onto the back of the house for an office/supply room, which also holds a lightbox and copy machine and a computer and printer, for research. (Because of the constant problems with keeping code secure, very few people are willing to put sensitive information online - technomancers charge a great deal for spelling one's laptops or desktop computers, never mind keeping a company's servers safe, and as a consequence the fees are high. But there's some good visual reference to be found.) The rest of the first floor - the living room/dining room and bedroom - are now the waiting room/reception area, the little meditation room, and the actual studio.
It's a single big space, divided by judicious placement of bookshelves, cabinets, and curtains. Every so often a client will need absolute privacy, of the kind that comes with being able to close a door. It's not an easy request to accommodate, but we can take a single appointment for a block of time, so it's just the client and an artist in the studio.
There are two other tattoo artists who work with me. (I can't think of them as working for me. They effectively rent space from me and set their own hours and their own prices. We're friends.) Kona took a boat to the mainland from Hawaii about ten years ago, and he does the most beautiful abstract black and white work I've ever seen. (Flights are expensive, especially over water. A ship between the West Coast and Hawaii means a long trip, but you can do it for less money than flying. Flying over land is another matter. It has something to do with the power of earth. It's more arcane knowledge than I need to know.) I say "Hawaiian" and most people expect a native Hawaiian, and while he is a native in the sense that his family has been there since just before WW1, he's a white boy with white-boy dreads and an affinity for water.
The other artist is Maya, who moved here from Texas with her boyfriend, and whose specialty is portraits and realistic color work. She's also very good, and equally importantly, I like her as a person. She came to work at Suzume Tattoos nine months ago, when my colleague Rachael decided to travel for a year. I told Rae when she left that she could always come back - I would always have a chair for her - but it's been two months since I heard from here, and I don't know if she even wants to come back here. Kona was convinced she was interested in me, and that was one reason she left. I think he was wrong. In fact, I know he was wrong.
I have parents I almost never talk to, an older sister I almost never talk to, an ex I talk to more than I would have expected, and a lovely neighbor who stress-bakes. My grandmother Dolly, my mother's mother, calls me once a month to tell me to call my mother, and not to listen to anything my mother says. Grandma Dolly is on my side. Grandma Dolly might like me better than her own daughter. My mother, bless her heart, has a knack for alienating people. Her own sister, my Aunt Donnie, almost never talks to her. And yet she's managed to find and keep a group of friends, and as far as I can tell, my father still loves her.
There were several years when I didn't speak to my parents at all. I went off to art school, which was an acceptable use of my time, but I became a tattoo artist, which wasn't. And I came out as a lesbian - at the time I thought I was bisexual, but my parents wouldn't even understand what that meant and I didn't want to have to explain - which was actually ok to some people in their social circle. But my mother wanted a son-in-law and grandbabies from both her daughters, and the fact that I could adopt or have a child through artificial insemination wasn't good enough for her. I was a rebellious girl and did everything I could think of to make it crystal clear that I wasn't my sister and I wasn't my parents, and I would do what I wanted. Eventually they had enough, and in retrospect I'm not sure I entirely blame them.
So I didn't talk to them for a long time. I apprenticed in Jonatha's studio, I got more ink, I got involved with a girl who was bad for me, I extricated myself from her life and swore off girls and boys. (I dated a few boys in art school, and even now I wonder if someday I might in fact end up married to man who will give my mother the second son-in-law she seems to desperately want.) I worked, I partied, I traveled. I started to think about opening my own place. I had some contact with my sister, but our phone conversations were always a little stiff and awkward, because she wanted to tell me to call our parents and I didn't want to hear it. I wanted my mother to apologize for calling me a disappointment and an embarrassment. My mother wanted me to give up my weird friends and my tacky profession and do what my sister had done - get a nice white collar job, meet a nice white collar boy, plan a nice wedding and a nice future.
Magic is a fickle thing, and while I could touch a nervous client's arm and relax them enough so they could sit still for a tattoo and not faint, I couldn't do anything to get my mother to chill out. I don't think my particular little talent works on relatives.
When Grandpa Harb died - my mother's father - Aunt Donnie called to tell me and to suggest I use it as an opportunity to mend fences with my parents. I went to the funeral out of respect for Grandma Dolly, and because I loved my grandpa. My mother did too. So we started talking.
And where was my father? In his heart, on my side. He just wants me to be happy. And if that means inking people for a living in a little college town, so be it. But he'll never say that in front of my mother.
So that's my life. I'm tall like my father's people and fair like my mother's people, and I have no idea where the little big of magic comes from. No one knows if it's hereditary or not. Not every manifestation is as pleasant as mine, so for all I know my mother has it too, but it's not the kind of magic anyone would choose to have. It's not something I'm ever going to ask, because having some magic isn't respectable, and respectability is very important to my mother. It's just not important to me.
words: 1706
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no subject
Date: 2015-11-02 09:17 pm (UTC)(Typo patrol: right at the end: the little *big* of magic comes from.)
no subject
Date: 2015-11-03 06:19 am (UTC)(oops. the first typo of many, no doubt.)