Emerald Web

I had a tree house when I was a kid. Way high up in the branches, it seemed. I visit it now, as a grown-up, but cannot fit through its little doorway. Even so it brings back happy memories of days spent in leaves and sunlight. I’ve certainly not given up on this pursuit! Now though I’ve tied a big hammock in the branches, even higher off the ground, and I clamber up on sunny days to spend time with the trees and with my thoughts. Today, strangely, I’m thinking about tattoos! I’d clambered up to the hammock and now I lie here contemplating some henna tattoos just painted onto my skin. The shifting sunlight through the leaves mixes with the henna patterns. An emerald web of sunlight. It’s hypnotic. Hennas are temporary of course, and one day I might get some permanent marks. But the whole notion of putting designs onto our skins had got me thinking. Skin’s a funny thing when you think about it. A surface onto the outside world. So the surface of it is not quite us, but not quite part of the outside world either. When we draw or paint onto our skin we are kind of claiming it as our own. I am my body – we seem to be saying – I own my body. It’s a defence against the world in a way, but also a statement. These images or words – the markings seem to be saying – are so important that I’m going to fuse them with my naked flesh. Some would say the tattooed body is never quite naked again – the images are always there as a kind of clothing. But I think I disagree. In a way we are more naked with our tatts. Not only are we baring flesh, we’re baring our thoughts, our hopes, our art and our style as the images and words say who we are on the inside. That’s vulnerability! So why do it? You might be asking. Well, for me at least, it’s about pleasure. Nude bodies can just be a bit boring. It’s always more interesting to put on some markings or painting or writing! And this gets me thinking about pleasure itself. What’s that all about? Three things come to mind straight away. There’s knowledge, there’s desire and then there’s pleasure. Knowledge, I’m thinking, is what gets us into trouble! Humans are always living in their heads and inevitably each person thinks what’s in their head is right. So maybe some other folk – even all other folk – are wrong. Trouble! We are really all about desires – bodily desires. That’s what all the knowledge and the thinking blots out. If we stopped to listen to our bodies we’d have a whole different view of the world and of ourselves. At the same time though we can’t just jump from one desire to another. We need to sort them, choose them, so we can have pleasure, happiness and joy. The desires we indulge and the pleasures we choose – this is what defines who we are. What though, you may be wondering, is the link back to tattoos? (Apart, of course, from tatts just being a pleasure in themselves?) Well, as I’d been thinking earlier, marking the skin is a two-way street. We claim ownership of our skin by marking it, but we also give those marks to the world as a gift. And touching is a two-way street as well, like none of the other senses. To touch is always to be touched in return. I’m thinking something similar might happen with pleasure. Here’s how that might go. When we think of pleasure we mostly think in selfish ways. That we each try to maximise our own pleasure – that’s an economist’s view of the world! Others will tell you there’s no pleasure like shared pleasure. What would that be? Perhaps the liberal lefty’s view of the world? Closer, but not there yet. Instead I’m thinking of pleasure as a two-way street, like tatts and touch. It defines who we are – we own our own bodies through pleasure, but it can also be a gift. Giving pleasure might sometimes be like sharing pleasure, but it can also be very different. Seems though – and perhaps you’re with me on this one – that there’s a bit of sacrifice involved in this. A gift I want to share with the world? Being pleasure for other people? Is that really what pleasure is about? (Or half of it anyway.) And, ‘giving pleasure’? Sounds a bit pervy as well! The sun’s gone behind a cloud. The canopy of leaves seems dark all of a sudden. Bu getting in and out of this hammock is a big effort! I’ll just hang on in for a bit longer – see if I can follow this train of thought to the end. So let’s try this: Make someone laugh. Make someone happy. Make someone proud to be themselves. Give someone care. Give someone love. And when I say ‘someone’ I guess I don’t just mean some other human. I think I need to include the animals, the birds the fish the insects the trees and the plants in all this too. When we do these things we make ourselves vulnerable. We are metaphorically naked for other people and that invites others to be comfortable with being themselves in return. Still a big ask? Well, I’m sticking with it! Pleasure is a two-way street. Go write it on your skin.