My Body is Mine.

Introduction

When I signed up for capstone, I knew exactly what I wanted to do: write a play in the style of David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries (if you have no idea what that is, don’t worry). However, when the school year started, I quickly realized that my Santaland Diaries rip off wasn’t going to cut it. So I pivoted. To tattoos.

Despite all of my initial certainty about my project idea, I spent several months unable to figure out what direction I wanted my project to move in. I couldn’t decide what aspect of tattoos I wanted to explore and once I did decide, I couldn’t decide how best to present that information. I also realized quite early on that tattoos aren’t the easiest topic to research in an academic context. Most of my research had to be conducted through personal interviews. On several occasions, I would sit in front of my computer, paralyzed by the mere thought of working on my project. It was genuinely terrifying to me. I considered dropping the class more than once.

But here we are. 

My final project is a combination of my two ideas: a written work and tattoos. It is the culmination of countless hours of research and intense anxiety. My Body is Mine is a collection of creative nonfiction pieces exploring the complex relationship between tattoos, women, and bodily autonomy. My personal experiences and those of the women I talked to and researched are reflected in each piece. At the end of the day, it is a love letter to tattoos and to the female body.