the Nonsense in Between

The Gift

The other day Dominic posted about the gift we received from Chris Conley of Saves the Day. Last night it finally came to fruition.

Let me start at the beginning...
A couple of years ago the Saves the Day song "This is not an Exit" gained a special place in our hearts and lives. The words in that song have meant more to us than any other. Later, when Dominic and I agreed to getting tattoos as a symbol of our commitment to eachother it seemed appropriate to have that title be the symbol. Just weeks after we made that decision Saves the Day was playing a show at the Aztlan Theater. We attended the show and as always had an amazing time. After the show we met up with Chris. We told him how much that song means to us and asked if he wouldn't mind writing it in his handwriting. He graciously obliged. That moment that we shared with him, the words we exchanged, the connection we made is forever burned in my mind, and now inked on my skin.

It being my first and probably only tattoo I feel the need to describe the experience...

First, we weren't even going to get tattooed last night we were just going to get consultations. To our surprise the tattoo artist wanted to do it right away! The artist we had chosen was a guy called Fish at Think Tank Tattoo. We chose him only because we'd seen, and fallen in love with, his artwork on their website. I couldn't have been happier with our choice. He took his time to make the tattoo look exactly as Chris had written it. Fish understood that it wasn't "just text" as so many tattoo artists had described it. It was an amazing experience for so many reasons. We even had the privilege of purchasing some of Fish's artwork that had drawn us to him in the first place. I can't thank him enough for his time, patience, and kindness.