Close photo of a thin black fine line script tattoo reading without struggle there is no progress, sitting on the side of the torso near a dark waistband.

Handwritten quote tattoo on the side torso

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo is a handwritten quote in black script reading without struggle there is no progress, set across three staggered lines with the words struggle and progress slightly offset. The linework is thin and even, with the lettering shown in solid black ink and no shading. It sits on pale skin beside a dark lace or fabric edge at the top left of the frame, with the rest of the composition kept simple.

Fine line Lettering Other Quote Script Text Handwriting

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth, the lamp in the net loft has gone out again, so I am writing this on the upturned crate by the door while the tide comes in under the slip. Dad's card is still tacked above the bench where he left it, curling at the corners with salt. He wrote it in pencil, the way he wrote everything, leaning hard on the downstrokes as if the paper might argue. Without struggle there is no progress, and underneath, smaller, the word Mary, which is the name of the boat he spent three winters rebuilding with his own hands.

Keep reading

I told you on the telephone that the planking was finished. That was a lie I did not know I was telling until the words were out. The seam at the stern still weeps whenever the wind goes round to the south, and I have been calling it weather. Mr Coyle from the chandlery came down on Tuesday with his cap in his fists and said the boat would be sold for scrap before spring if nobody took the caulking on. I said yes before I had thought about the cost of pitch.

So on Thursday I carried the iron and the oakum down to the hard at first light. My hands blistered by nine and bled by eleven. Somewhere past noon the seam began to hold, and I found myself pressing the cotton in with my thumbs, slow and stubborn, the way his pencil used to go.

Write soon. Tell me if the sea looks the same from where you are. Love, Nell.