Non fiction

Mapping

When I think of journeys I imagine the finely etched lines of latitude and longitude stretching across the skin of the illuminated globe I had as a child.  I remember tracing my fingers along those lines, across countries and continents that I wished I could escape to, and explore.

I remember a small town in Germany, and the hastily sketched map directing me through the streets towards a window decorated with bright and garishly coloured ink drawings.  Branches of cherry blossom entwined with gleaming carp, bare-breasted pin-up girls and dagger pierced hearts.  Swallows holding banners declaring True Love, Forever Yours, Mum and Dad.  I push open the door and enter.

The guy doesn’t speak English, and my German is poor, but smiling and nodding we manage to communicate.  And I hand over a piece of paper, a circular image, with interweaving rays radiating outwards.  I sit on the table with my leg outstretched, as he peels off the white sheet to reveal the faint purple outline, a sun-shaped bruise.

The buzzing’s not too bad at first, but as the needle traces the outline of the design the slight stinging turns into a burning sensation, like my skin is on fire.  I fight the urge to move, fearful of spoiling the effect.  But it becomes more insistent, an angry wasp jabbing into my flesh.  It’s a delicate piece and doesn’t take very long, but because it’s my ankle, it feels etched into the bone.

A sun symbolises rebirth, and mine starts with a university place, which leads on to other unexpected routes that I hadn’t planned or imagined.  At times it I am tempted to retrace my steps, but I don’t believe in going backwards, preferring new experiences to covering old ground. 

Cut to May 2013, with a birthday and my final MA performance looming, I find myself looking at another piece of paper, this one I have carried around for three years.  A woodcut engraving of two Greek drama masks, it represents many things: a welcome return to my studies, an unexpected impulse to write and perform, and the man I asked to leave three months earlier.   Comedy and tragedy.

These lines make a deeper impression, the large design on an inner forearm is more visible, leaving nowhere to hide.  But reclaiming a body and a life requires a bold statement, and reminds me there are things to celebrate as well as regret.  This time it takes much longer, and three hours in the tattooist’s chair leaves me swollen and bleeding, but it’s a cleansing kind of pain.

The man returns, says I am now ‘marked and moved on’, and reminds me of a promise he’d once made to pay for that ink.  But they were my lines of longitude, my road to take, with no room for passengers. 

So he plots his own path.  I find a studio, and stand for five long hours as they ink it into his skin.  I watch the artist’s needle dip into a glass of clear water, turning muddy brown with each different colour added.  I laugh as he calls it Tattooist’s Mocha.  Then leave with a man carrying a raven-haired gypsy girl on his inner forearm, with my tumbling curls and full red lips.  She has sparkling blue eyes, but mine are green.

Today I am drawn back to the globe, and the coastline where land kisses sea.  I start to draw a new course, prick my fingers on the bold black lines of compass points, and feel the pull of the anchor as it drops onto the page.  Symbols for sailors seeking stability or the Viking hoping to find his way in life, it is an ink-drawn siren’s call to me.  But this time I will allow a friend to honour an old promise, help me plan the route, and add another place to my map.    

Someone told me recently that maps are fake, just substitutes or stand-ins for the real thing.  Helping us visualise unseen places and the spaces in between.  But, I believe they are a part of the journey itself, there to show us where we have been, and where we would like to go.  The Maori call their tattoos ‘Ta Moko’, and each design shows a person’s past, present and future.

Hayley Alessi

© 2014