Small black script tattoo reading Wanderlust across the upper back, just below the neck, on a person with their hair tied up seen from behind.

Wanderlust script on upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A photograph taken from behind of a person with dark hair tied up, showing a small script tattoo of the word Wanderlust across the upper back below the neck. The lettering is thin, even and dark, with a flowing cursive form. The background is pale and softly lit, with a red top over the shoulder.

Lettering Back Wanderlust Script Word Hair

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Your father never could spell that word, so I stopped trying to teach it him. Instead I kept the old atlas on the windowsill at Hollin Ford, where the river runs brown after the spring melt and the customs hut has been painted the same green since before you were born. Mr Aske, the guard, comes up for his tea at four and asks after you every time, as if you were only down the lane.

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The bus from Carlisle still stops at the bridge on Tuesdays. Last week a girl got off with a rucksack and a map folded into squares so small they looked like playing cards. She asked which side of the water the kennels were on, and I told her the English side, because the Scots side has never had a dog worth naming. She laughed, bought two eggs and a jar of damson jam, and left the map on the bench. I have it here. Someone has drawn a line across the border in pencil, rubbed it out, then drawn it again, harder.

I have not told you this before, but I walked it once, the year before you were born, when the wall was still a rumour and the fields were all one field. I got as far as the stile and turned round because your grandmother was calling from the step with a cup of milk going cold. I never regretted the milk. I have only ever regretted not finishing the sentence I began on that stile, which was that the world is wider than a kitchen window and I wanted to see its edge.

So go. Send postcards with the wrong stamps. I have kept the good nib and the ink pot in the drawer for you. Write the word in whatever hand you like, and I will know it is yours. Your loving mother, Ruth.