Into the Wilderness

To fully understand the reasoning behind the script so eloquently penned on my skin, my living canvas, one must enter the uncharted realm of my mind. “À la folie...” Translated from French it reads; “to insanity. Why, would I want such a phrase permanently inked on my body? Well, one would have to take a look at the perpetuated lie that I lived under from the age of twelve to the very recent present.

Here we go into the wilderness, all aboard the crazy train... Okay so this wasn't what we were thinking that warm September Saturday in 2015. Though to be all fair in everything new and old, clear and fogged, I can say that I was about to embark into the wilderness. It was my birthday weekend, September 5, 2015, a Saturday. I had just turned thirty-five that Wednesday, the second of September, and like my previous birthdays of years past, my family, well me mum, dad, and me, traveled up to Winnipeg Manitoba to visit my younger brother, his family, and other relatives. All in the name of celebrating my unexpected but blessed birth. (My youngest brother and his wife, as they had no children as of yet have never been a part of this yearly celebration due to distance.)

Being that it was my birthday weekend I was given the distinct privilege of choosing what we were going to be doing. What I kept to myself was that I had spent the past week Googling tattoo shops in the "artsy" part of Winnipeg. I was dead set on getting ink for my birthday. I was also one hundred percent sure that I was permanently marking my body with something that would infinitely tell the world that I was okay with who I was. A fractured, Salmagundi, voice hearing, Plath quoting, arm cutting, poetry breathing, depression spewing, fervent, anxiety ridden, panic attacked, humanoid. At least this is what I believed hence the ideal that I was living out a perpetuated lie basically from childhood. So, when I was scrolling the internet and came upon the meme that stated "a la folie" with the phrase "to insanity" written underneath. I was intrigued. I immediately went to work trying to find out firstly what language this was and secondly what and if this was the correct translation.

To my utter delight I found it was French and it was the same translation from two sources. Two is better than one being that so many celebrities have tattoo hacks where they wanted something and ended up with something completely different. So, my new tattoo was found.

Now the adventure began that Saturday morning in September of 2015 with my sister in law figuring out where exactly this tattoo shop was located. As per usual fare, she was the chauffeur. My mum and I were busy getting the kids ready. Yes, I said kids. My nephews who were three and one at the time. It never crossed my mind at the time that I was having my sister in law, whom I lovingly refer to as Snow White for her way of viewing the world, her mannerisms, and her ability to look to the bright side of things, bringing her children to a seedy, dank, tattoo shop. Even if it was for my birthday and for her favorite and only sister in law. To be fair, the shop was neither seedy nor dank.

After stowing the boys in car seats and getting the directions down pat. We were off and I was elated. I was finally going to get inked. Sure, I had other tattoos but this one. This one really had meaning behind it more so than any of the other ones that I had gotten through past years.

Parking was killer but we found a spot in a gravel parking lot of some smoke shop that didn't threaten towing for those that didn't patron the shop. Down the crowded sidewalk we traversed. The sticky hand of my three-year-old nephew cupped in mine. I held my breath when I finally saw the sign of the tattoo shop up ahead. Surprised a wee bit that it was in the basement of a three-story building. I turned with butterflies in my stomach and handed off my nephew to my mum. Down the scarred cement stairs, I went and through the postered glass front doors and was accosted by…

Accosted by melodic music and a bright well-lit sitting room complete with overstuffed chairs and end tables with binders overflowing with pictures of tattoos and magazines of what else, tattoos. At the counter, a youngster stands with bored eyes, snapping her gum along with a heavily tattooed woman with a mane of black hair that swings past her ass and a middle aged guy with the start of a beer gut and receding hair line wearing one of Walmart’s finest tee shirts and discount jeans. I take it all in before I approach to ask about my appointment and show them what I want. I get the guy in the Walmart couture. He’s nice with an easy smile. He takes my printing of what I want and tells me to have a seat for it will be a couple of minutes while he sizes and draws up the sketch. Not one good with waiting I ask about the price. We had tentatively discussed it over email when I vetted the place. Without a second glance at me he throws out a number and then asks me again about the size, I confirm the size. He looks back at me and smiles. “Then that’s your price, Sarah will ring you up…” Pay before your inked. I don’t know about this. I don’t remember how it was done any other time except I didn’t pay my friend’s boyfriend until after he had tattooed me. Nice prison style tattoo he needled on me in the dining room of their dingy rental house on a nondescript street in somewhere Minnesota.

Once I relax enough to sit my three-year-old nephew crawls into my lap and looks at me with those big brown eyes. “Auntie Jamie… are you scared.” I only shake my head and cuddle him close as the guy with the receding hair line, beginning of a beer belly, and the easy smile calls me back. Just as I get up to leave, I notice a massive portrait over the counter of the backside of a kneeling woman. Her entire back and arms are tattooed all the way to her ass, which is visible even though she is kneeling and partially sitting on it. It takes me a moment to realize that the woman with the mane of black hair is the exact muse from the portrait. Her tattoos showing through her backless shirt. I couldn’t believe I had dragged my innocent sister in law and my little nephews into this world but then I took stock of who I thought I was and realized that it was exactly the kind of thing someone like me would do without regard. Oblivious to my musings the guy with the slight beer gut, receding hair line, and the easy smile called me and I was at attention again. He was taking me back and I was about to get inked.

Off I went following him down a short hallway to small a room with a funky chair that reclined and a stool. There were cabinets along the walls that went halfway up as the other half of the wall was glass. As I sat in the funky chair, whose asses had sat there before me were infinite. I could see my family sitting in the sitting area. My three-year-old nephew watching with big brown bug eyes. Funny thing was I could still hear their or most of their conversation, three years olds aren’t known for their serene voices and volume control. This was going to prove to be interesting as I sat for my tattoo.

So, the tattooist with the slight beer gut, receding hair line, and easy smile started the normal rigamaroo prepping the stencil and placing it where I said I wanted it, left side under my clavicle. When I got up and looked in the mirror, I was stoked it was perfect, the perfect representation of the depiction of mental turmoil that I was destined to be. I mean I had already outlived “my best by date.” I was sure that I wouldn’t see my thirtieth year and then when it happened, I swore I wouldn’t see the end of my thirtieth year. Celebrating thirty-five seemed like borrowed time and something not to sneer at. That being said, I sat back and said “yes, I’m ready.” Then I began to feel the euphoric tat tat tat of the tiny needles piercing my skin, the blood oozing out with each prick. My face must have said something different because I heard my nephew in his angelic three-year-old voice ask my mum if I was okay because it looked like that man was hurting me. Oh, the unconditional love of a child, there really isn’t anything so sweet. That was the last thing I heard as I sailed off into my own mind my tattoo continuing to take shape. Until…

The heavily tattooed woman with the mane of black hair past her ass came down the hall into the room and got the attention of the guy tattooing me. She had a grin on her face, a face that on further inspection led me to believe that she was far closer to fifty then thirty and her choice of outfit was completely ill thought out. But whatever. She began to talk to the guy tattooing me I was happy to ignore the convo until she mentioned the little boy up front. Then my ears tuned in. The little boy up front, the only little boy up front that could talk, my nephew, apparently had noticed the large portrait of her behind the counter. Being a little boy and having the naiveté of a child. He first noticed the portrait was not of a tattooed lady but that you could see the lady’s backside and he announced it rather loudly to all in ear shot. “You can see that lady’s butt!” His mortified mother got a respite because the one year old was fussy and needed to be taken out but my mum was left red faced with the culprit and the muse whose butt was being talked about standing just a few feet away. This is what the heavy tattooed lady with the mane of black hair past her ass was telling the guy tattooing me. She laughed a he haw laugh barely catching her breath and the tattooist had to stop his work to have a chuckle. I had to giggle myself. Leave it to my nephew to find the only nudity in the joint and point it out.

Before I even realized it, my new ink was fin’. I sat up and walked to the mirror and couldn’t help but smile, a smile that nearly cracked the porcelain façade of my face. It was beautiful. I was perfect. It was all mine. It was my statement to them all, my big middle finger to all those people and situations that left me in the cold. A la folie…

I walked out of that shop a new woman, standing a little taller, feeling a little stronger. Like I wrangled a banshee that had been howling and scratching at the window of my psyche, the window of my soul. We went down the street for gelato because the boys had behaved so well.

It’s funny because now five years later I found myself just a few months ago so desperate to rid myself of this tattoo especially that I was bound and determined to rip my skin from my bones to do so. I had it all lined up to start the process of having it removed and with it all the memories with it. All in the name of finding my way out of the wilderness that was my life, finding the truth that literally set me free. Like a phoenix I’ve risen from my fire and burn through the hemisphere, a blazing beacon to all that can heal. I have the inked mark to show for it. “A la folie…” Let us all take a chance.