Black and grey fine line tattoo of an open book with trailing ribbons and the script it's not the destination it's the journey, on the side of the ribs.

Open book with ribbons on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

An open book with shaded pages and loose ribbons sits above a thin line that curves down to a handwritten script reading 'it's not the destination it's the journey', with a small charm at the end of the line. The linework is fine and clean, with light grey shading on the book and ribbons. The design is in black ink only and runs across the side of the ribs.

Fine line Lettering Ribs Book Ribbon Script Quote Line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had been stitching the same gathering for three days when Abbot Wulfric came down to the bindery and asked why the quire was still open on the bench. I told him the waxed thread had run short and I was waiting on the carter from Richmond, which was true, and that I had been reading while I waited, which was also true.

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The book was a psalter Sister Ealdgyth had copied before her eyes failed. Its oak boards were worn pale at the corners, and its pages were thin as onion skin. A ribbon of green silk marked the place, but the silk had frayed at the tip, and every morning it had slipped down into the gutter. Under the lamp one night I found a small lead bell knotted to its end, no bigger than a hazelnut. When I lifted the book it rang, a sound so faint I had to hold my breath to hear it. I understood then why the ribbon kept sliding. It was not meant to hold the place. It was meant to be pulled, so that whoever read the book would follow the bell down the page to the next line.

Wulfric looked at the psalter for a long while. He did not ask me to put it down. He only said that the carter would be waiting at the gate by Lauds, and that a book which had been waiting for two hundred years could wait no longer.

At dawn I wrapped the psalter in sacking and tied the ribbon to the outside of the parcel, so the bell hung free against the cart's wheel. As the wagon rolled down the lane towards the river, I heard it ring once, then again, then not at all, and I went back to the bench where the next gathering lay open, the thread already waxed and waiting.