Why hello there! I didn’t mean for so much time to go by before I blogged. The past two weeks kind of creeped up on me and whizzed by.

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I’m now really truly officially into my forties. And, honestly, it kind of feels weird. But good too. But dudes. There’s no getting around the fact that I’m old. And, dare I say, over the hill. I kind of think I’m o.k. with that. maybe.

I got a tattoo! Did I tell you that my husband is working on getting his Oregon State tattoo license? He is. (kind of a long story on how that all came about. maybe I’ll tell it sometime). Before he takes his test he hast to do 50 tattoo procedures. I am a lover of tattoo art and was happy to oblige. I got some cherry blossoms tattooed on my shoulder. I decided on cherry blossoms because they have significant meaning that really fits well with what I have learned about life these past few months:

“The fragility of the cherry blossom is the fragility of human existence; its brief period of life, like our own; its implacable movement toward death, indifferent to the good things of this world … ; and finally, its individual and perfect beauty is also ours.”

Raf described it simply as “life is beautiful but short.”  that beautifully sums up what I have learned, watching the death of my step-dad. I’ve also really loved watching cherry blossoms bloom in the springtime, as they  have been here for the past month. It seriously makes me happy.

I have another tattoo on my other shoulder that I got forever ago. Right before I met Raf, so 19 years ago. When I got the tattoo I went to the Hillyard Library in Spokane (I was visiting my parents at the time) to do some research on the design. For some reason I wanted a Native American design so I pulled some art books off the shelf and started looking for something that appealed to me. This design just jumped out and grabbed me and I knew this was the one. For a long time I kept the photocopy of the page that told me what exactly this creature was but I’ve long since lost it.  I’m pretty sure that printout said that it was an Ouroboros, because that is so clearly what it is. I’ve tried to track down the original book with no luck. I would really like to know the Native American meaning behind it.

All of these years I didn’t know why I wanted this design. I just felt drawn to it.  But I think it really is a good representation of how I feel about the spirit, or what happens after life. I really do believe (and this belief has been cemented since Doug died) that we do live on in some form after this life. So I think my two tattoos compliment each other really well. The one on my left representing life on this earth, the one on my right representing life after this life on earth.

I didn’t really put much thought into this until after I got the tattoos, by the way. This has all been an exercise in intuition.

Well, this is what drinking beer on a Saturday evening without the husband brings: a rambly post about tattoos.

Happy Saturday!♥