To Ink or not To Ink that was the question!
The Build up
Good Friday arrived (isn’t every Friday good though?!) and it was Tattoo Friday for me! I was really excited about it and got up early to salute to the sun, cat to the ceiling and baby to the carpet (yoga). I had wanted to go swimming as it would be the last chance I’d get for two weeks until the tattoo heals, but the pool wasn’t open early enough.
The tattoo shop I planned to go to was the only one I know of – about 3 towns down the railway line from my place. The morning was beautifully sunny, planes soaring like arrows into a blue sky dissecting cranes, chimney and multi-storeys. I paced the station platform listening to Talvin Singh – Eclipse (Asian drum n bass music). Doubly excited because it’s less than 4 weeks till Dallas.
Not sure if it was excitement or nerves as my bladder kept demanding trips to the little girls room. I jumped on the train sharp and keen with excitement and a big smile. I found the Tattoo place and was not at all put off by the fact it was no 13.I arrived only minutes after it opened, but my excitement turned to sourness as I entered a room that stank of dog and tobacco and an undertone of beer.
The let down
I wasn’t the first customer – there were two reedy young men and one older one with a Nazi hair cut. A huge dog that came up to my waist investigated my crotch whilst I appealed to an old lady who appeared to be a receptionist and stated the obvious – "I want a tattoo". Everyone was staring at me curiously. She smiled and was actually quite nice – she shouted at one of the loitering spotty men to take the dog down the alley. I cast an anxious eye around me and noted hundreds of designs on the walls of naked women, dragons and Celtic crosses. There was an air of decay and just the smell was getting to me. The walls were white once but they looked like they maybe got painted with a very tiny correction fluid brush by a blind midget. The old lady told me that there were two guys in front of me and could I come back in an hour. A gruff woman’s voice barked from the bark – "an hour and a half", which the old lady repeated to me.
Not feeling quite as excited as I did and actually a bit concerned a wandered back out on to the street and just followed my feet. Seriously that place just didn’t feel clean and I didn’t have a lot of confidence. I also felt like this was the wrong atmosphere somehow and that I didn’t’ belong and didn’t want to belong to this.
So I walked; I walked a lot listening to all my favourite music and pondering and before I knew it I had walked 5 miles and was in the town I work in. I knew I was going to be late to get back to the tattoo parlour and I was thinking maybe I’d get the train back. Then I had a feeling not really based on anything that there might be a tattoo place in the old section of town through the fruit market ( which is a proper East Enders type place) so I wandered through. The sun was starting to get hot and girls less dressed as I walked through a part of town I normally avoid. I saw a sign next to the pound shop for a Tattoo studio and followed it.
The Place
Instantly as I walked in to the shop which was painted black, had strobe lighting, heavy metal playing and a guy with dreadlocks down to his arse I knew I was in the right place. He gave a little boy a tenner and told him to go get a bacon sarnie and then gave me his attention. I told him exactly what I wanted and showed him my design, which I was encouraged when he didn’t say it was naff or anything and seemed to like it. He told me how much – I told him how much and we were both happy with the resulting compromise. He made me an appointment for an hour’s time and I went back into town suffused again with excitement and so happy that I had not stayed at the grubby hole I found earlier.
I grabbed something to eat. I was tempted to have a drink, but I wanted to be fully able to appreciate every last sensation and of course I remembered Richie’s advice about no alcohol. And I took time to ponder why I was doing this, what it meant to me and whether I wanted to back down. I never really considered the latter though as I knew I wanted to go through with it. The fact that it was Good Friday seemed an even more fitting time to have this particular tattoo.
How it felt
Back at the studio I filled out some forms and waited for my artist to see me. At this point I felt intensely charged and yet at the same time totally at peace, completely sure and tranquil. I thought about how 19 years ago I got baptized and how different an experience that had felt to this. How disappointing and sad and scary that occasion was and how alien I felt from everyone around me. We all entered that pool like a gas chamber, or that’s what it looked like from my 13 year old perspective.
This experience today was like my anti-baptism. A purification through a sublime pain leaving a branding mark for all time to remind me of it. I thought about all the people who had said not to do it that it was sheep like, that I would regret it when I was older, that it would stop me doing things and so before Kristoff got started I said "Could you increase the sizing by 100% please." He grinned and got stuck in. I asked him where he was from as he put his latex gloves on. "Poland" he replied. I smiled, "Cool."
I braced myself for the pain and looked away and began the breathing that Richie told me about – 3 seconds in and 3 seconds out. I don’t how to describe it – it’s kind of indescribable. It was like ecstasy. I assumed from how it felt he must be doing the shading first, but when I looked back I realized he had completed the outline of my poppy. I marveled at the lack of blood – honestly there was barely a trickle. I felt unbelievably relaxed and I watched the rest – giving him small directions as to the colouring and lines. The rest of the time I listened to the tribal beat of the heavy metal, smiled at the pictures and familiar emblems around me and felt totally at home. The feeling of the needle was just bliss – every line was ecstasy and I tried to hold onto the sensation as long as possible, to burn it into my memory to relive later.
It was over too soon – about 30 minutes in all. I was very pleased with the result. It was exactly what I wanted. A poppy at the centre of a spider’s web
What it means to me
This tattoo is a symbol of my past. It is on my right hip symbolising my rejection of right-wing conservativism. The poppy is the source of Opium and when reading Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater (1785-1859) some years ago, I found this, which in some ways is how it felt to be a JW:
"I was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by paroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed, for centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms: I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me; Seva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles; and laid, confounded with all unuttemble slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud".
The poppy in my tattoo represents religion from Karl Marx’s saying "Religion is the opium of the people" (opiate of the masses is a misquote). The spider’s web as in Agatha Christie’s play is the web of lies. This represents all the lies I was brought up with as a JW and the trap they formed, sticky and difficult to extract oneself from. The two are as bad as each other - organized religion in general and the one I was brought up with – and so they are inextricably linked and I reject them both – organized religion and the individual organization of lies I have suffered at the hands of.
The whole experience was very therapeutic. Now I have a symbol, an emblem, something of my own construction. I loved designing it, thinking about it and I loved having it scored into my skin.
And now I have to lovingly tend to it …. Thanks for reading.
I will post pictures soon as I took some straight away.
(PS and Richie I remembered your final piece of advice too – tip the tattooist. He looked chuffed to bits and its clearly not the norm round here, so he’s looking forward to my return in a fortnight (if I can afford it) for the next tattoo.)