Just One Thing with C.C. Russell

Last week we debuted a brand new feature here on the Lip Service blog: Just One Thing, where our contributors share just one thing that you wouldn't otherwise know about their featured piece. Maybe it's the inspiration, or where they were when they wrote it, or an edit that changed everything. Whatever it is, it's a behind-the-scenes look at our writers' poems, memoir, and stories.

Today, C.C. Russell shares a glowing glimpse out of a rainy car window and just one thing about "The Ways We've Learned to Say Our Goodbyes," this month's featured memoir: 

I did have the tattoo fixed. About a year after I wrote the first draft of this piece. I found an artist who said that he could color it in and fix the outlines without destroying the original art. It took nearly five hours of work. My leg cramped from being held in the same position for so long. The whole time I felt guilty that I was changing this thing that I had done with her. The whole time I was worried that it would somehow come out worse.

But it’s gorgeous. This strange quiet giant of a man (that’s a story for another day) had worked a miracle. It’s vibrant and clean. Somehow, I feel like she would be absolutely okay with it. Hell, in my more melodramatic moments I wonder what she might have had to do with it turning out so well. That’s wishful thinking, I suppose, but it’s a nice thought nonetheless.