Jimsonweed

 A little over seventeen years ago, my grandmother, or Ma, as we called her, confessed to smoking jimsonweed. Ma's doctor had been unsuccessful at treating her breathing, so she went to, "the old witch lady down the road." This woman gave her a wooden box of dried jimsonweed, told her to roll it into a cigarette and smoke it. Ma said it didn't really help her breathing, and it made her feel crazy. This would have been in 1955, just before she gave birth to my father (prematurely). This confession has been the source of years of jokes about my dad being an unintelligent jimsonweed baby.

When I began googling jimsonweed I learned that Georgia O'Keeffe did a series paintings of the herbaceous perennial. I fell in love with this painting: Jimsonweed by Georgia O'Keefe.

Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium) also goes by the names thorn apple and devil's snare. The flowers open at night and emit a sweet fragrance. Conversely, the leaves are stinky when rubbed. It contains alkaloids, tropane, atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine, making it a useful medicinal herb or poison. All parts of the plant are toxic, narcotic, and hallucinogenic. Too much Jimsonweed will kill. Poor Ma!  Poor fetal Dad! What a trip. 

Anyway, now to the reason for this post. For more than 10 years I've wanted to get a tattoo, but I could never settle on an image and location. Yesterday that changed. I was in the shower when I it suddenly hit me. I WANT A JIMSONWEED TATTOO ON MY LEFT SHOULDER. 

Now to find an artist that I trust to cause me great pain and make permanent changes to my body.