New drawing. 5x7 graphite and water color, brown craft paper. 2022
Seventeen years ago, a traditional tattoo master in Siem Reap asked me why I wanted to get a tattoo. I said I was a traveler. I wanted to be able to cross borders. The tattoo master's mother, a bald woman, pointed at the rooster. They put two on my back. Like a passport stamp. One on each shoulder blade facing each other.
The rooster could mean different things to different cultures, and I wanted mine to be personal, so I wasn’t too keen about finding out what I had been told—that the mark was a gift. I have since learned that in Khmer Yantra Tattoo, the rooster bestows the gift of eloquence, a powerful voice, an ability to understand languages. Those who wear the symbol will have great observational skills and can pick up things that others miss. The Rooster represents protection for the community and is already awake before sunrise. The rooster also bears the unfortunate history of being bred for blood sport. For centuries, men have fastened blades to roosters’ legs to slice open other birds. When I see a world under dictatorships and lives destroyed on social media, I am reminded of the brutality bred into the tragic lives of the territorial rooster.
I might have embraced the rooster more as an emblem if I didn’t know the downside of being up before sunrise. Besides insomnia, to me it also meant living with night terrors, sleep paralysis, and a host of sleep disorders. I was seven when I first saw the shadow in the room. The last time I saw it standing next to my bed was early in 2022, a constant figure that appears across many cultures among those who suffer from sleep paralysis. The experience is different from nightmares in that you’re somewhat half-awake when the shadows appear.
I saw less of the shadow in 2022. A lot of it I owe to my recovery, which included better sleeping habits. You can view my other drawings and illustrations here.
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