I’ve never seen the 3 tattoos I’m writing about now, maybe they don’t even really exist. What certainly remains is their story and the therapeutic metaphor that gave birth to this idea.
She enters the cabinet, a bit reluctantly. I make some space for her. She’s 20 and blonde. I invite her to choose where she would like to sit and the ordeal of decisions begins. She scans the room, hoping I’ll disappear. Tough luck.
When she starts to speak (“Well…”) I register her strained voice and the effort she puts in, as if she had harnessed a much too heavy chariot. She moves her hands a lot and the sound of the colored plastic in her nails slightly distracts me.
She knows and she doesn’t know things about her. She would let and does not let the words flow. Everything is kept on the surface, any attempt to take at least one step inside is avoided with a determined ricochet.
Almost an hour goes by and at the end, so that neither of us remains suspended, hovering over the questions, I suggest her to open an umbrella.
—Umbrella? What umbrella? Which umbrella?
– If you were to open an umbrella above you right now, how would it look?
I think she’s seeing me for the first time. Still something. Despite my feeling that she’s going to crush the damn umbrella, spoke to spoke, she digs her index finger nail into her cheek and smiles.
– Biiiiig and colorful. Pastel.
I look at her nails again.
— And if you were to print a message on this big, colorful umbrella, something you believe in and that would protect you when things get tough, what would you write?
– What do you mean? Like those Coke umbrellas?
— Well, yeah, something like that.
— I would write: “20, Halfway to Freedom ” And it would have the shape of a skyscraper.
3 secret ideas for 3 imaginary tattoos
She wasn’t really absent, I say to myself as she prepares her apotheotical conclusion:
— You know, I’m leaving this therapy with 3 ideas for 3 tattoos.
— ?
– I won’t tell you now. But if you were to open an umbrella above you right now, and if you were to print on this umbrella a message to believe in and which would protect you when you are having a hard time, what would you write?
I watch her leaving the office. I close the door, sit down, and dial my therapist’s number.
