All new residents come to see me in their first week, and yesterday I met Viva. Since Viva has her GED she won’t have to attend my class. But we talked awhile and I was struck by how many tattoos she has, often a sign of long-term incarceration. If you’re never getting out then it doesn’t matter how the “outside” world sees you. What’s unusual about Viva is that the tattoos are all over her face. Her eyebrows look like the stylized waves one might see in a Japanese ink drawing. Tattooed words that I can’t make out form a proper mustache and goatee. Women’s names are written in red and green on her cheeks. She told me she has started the long process of having the tattoos removed by laser. “I put them on to fit in, I put them on to keep people away,” she said of the tattoos. “It’s complicated.” Yet her friendliness and social ease belie all self-consciousness.
What does any of us put on to fit in, to keep people away? It’s an interesting question.
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