One of the delights of summer in our northern clime is the uncovering of our bodies, to the extent that would make a Taliban blush.

Long-sleeved shirts and heavy coats are ripped from limbs to display, among the exuberant flesh, the year's crop of fresh tattoos.

No doubt many of these tattoos have been around for a while. But each summer, as I patrol the city streets, I am surprised anew at the latest palette of inky designs paraded along all the fashionable places, broiling in the summer's heat.

No longer are tattoos the emblems of a caste of prisoners, gangs, soldiers or sailors. No longer, either, are they just for the rugged or the marginalized.

Like male ear-studs, tattoos today have leaped across the gender divide and achieved the demure state of being simply decorative.

In other words, intricate Russian mafia designs aside, tattoos are now just plain normal.

What if you get sick of them?

Yet, I must confess, tattoos still throw me. I know it's partly my age and, I hope, my curiosity. But I have this odd habit of asking the occasional person: "Could you tell me why you got a tattoo?"

A woman shows off her tattoos at the International Tattoo Convention in London, England, in September 2009. The convention brings together the world's best tattoo artists from the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan and the U.K. as well as piercing specialists and fashion designers. (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press)

I must be careful whom I ask, not wanting to offend or ignite. And one of the things I notice about my inquiries is that I often get very short answers that do not invite further questions.

For example, coming across a personable young producer at work, I noticed she was sporting a couple of birds on each forearm. "Are those new?" I asked her.

"Yes," she says.

When I asked her why she wanted them, she told me: "They make me happy, just looking at them."

"What if you get sick of them?" I asked.

"I won't," she answered.

Now, I have received this answer many times before and it's always puzzled me.

How odd that we can get sick of an article of clothing, and how men's suit lapels can grow wide or thin, and women's skirt lengths roll up and down their legs.

We can change our fashion, our ideas, our jobs, our friends — sometimes our very personalities through medication, exercise, tummy tucks or psychotherapy.

But a tattoo that we had stitched onto ourselves years before in a moment of soft impulse? That stays?

Cool cats

Yes, I know, the tattoo removal business is supposedly booming. Although I can't say that is something I've noticed: Everyday there seems to be more tattoos being added than subtracted from the bodies that parade before me.

But, apparently, tattoos aren't simply a fashion statement. Fashion is meant to be changed. Tattoos aren't.

Now, tattoos in criminal gangs can be insignias, a symbol of rank or function; or, like medals and ribbons on soldiers' chests, signs of accomplishment and station.

A next-door neighbour has two tattoos, one on each ankle. One is there because he saved someone's life while kayaking. The other because he reached the base camp at Everest.

In this way, tattoos signify a rite of passage. (Maybe, after last weekend, some people will get a G20 tattoo?)

On a more cultural level, some aboriginal people have been known to exhibit a complex series of tattoos running up and down their body, displaying an entire cosmology.

All told, though, most of my interview subjects use a kind of shorthand when I ask why they got tattooed. "It's cool," they say.

They are clearly being polite.

Notching

When I persist and ask, "Can you imagine ever getting sick of your tattoo?" I am usually told, "It will always be part of me."

That may well be the case, especially the ones on the small of the back, often of spiders or totemic animals, which are very popular.

These I see often in my yoga classes, peeking out from the backs of Lycra tops worn by inward-gazing women.

Coy creatures, they are, these little animal tattoos. Always there, invisible to their owners.

But this is not fashion. This is notching. A way of saying, whatever happens to me, I have this silent memory: This is the way I was then. And this part of my existence will always reside in me.

I can understand this urge to keep a covenant with yourself, as you were at one time, perhaps when going through something memorable, traumatic or simply sentimental.

Just the other day, I saw a disabled woman on a motorized scooter, arms mere stumps, legs swollen, with a sweet, stenciled bird on her ankle. As if to say, there will always be a part of me that — no matter what you think and what I go through — is a person, like you.

That is cool.

Listen up

I can see this urge to keep a sign of yourself, some display of your common humanity or some part of your inner self etched on your body.

But why this urge to pickle yourself with tattoos like a Maori warrior?

These tattoos are imperial in the way they subsume entire swatches of the body. They creep up necks like grasping turtleneck sweaters. These are the sort of tattoos that Queequeg, the New Zealand harpooner, wore in Moby Dick.

But the new Queequegs are promenading on Yonge St. in 21st century Toronto.

One friend, a young writer, came into my office, his arms emblazoned with Asian lettering. They were stark, black and vigorous against his bronzed skin (he had been travelling, seeking sage counsel).

Apparently, these symbols denoted some spiritual teaching. I forget which one.

His tattoos were really tattoo rosaries, sacred signs, always to be before your eyes, like a text written permanently on his skin.

In this case, they also are aural.

When my friend looks at his tattoos, they speak to him. I could see his mouth curl as if he were reciting them.

"Ohm," he seems to be saying, under his breath.

Self-regard or meditation? All I know is that my young friend seems to be happy with his tattoos.

I also suspect that the birds that chirp to the young producer, from the midst of her fluttering forearms, make her happy as well.

Psychologists tell us to employ two senses instead of one so the information we seek will be better encoded. That's why prayers are often sung.

So, when you walk down the street and witness the passing parade of tattooed bodies, from urban Maori warriors to discreet bank clerks with their secret markings, listen up, people.

These creatures, the tattoos and the folks who wear them, are communicating with each other. It's noisy, but for those who bear them, definitely cool.