A Dragonfly for My Daughter

Those of you who know me personally are aware of my longtime love of tattoos. I got my first in 1986 at age 18 - a birthday/graduation present from my mother (who was very supportive and cool for the time). Since then, I have gotten eight others, including both sides of my neck, the insides of both wrists and the back of my right hand. Not very concerned about showing them to the world, they tell the story of my life. I have a tattoo for an old friend who I loved dearly, one for the breakup of a serious relationship, one for my stillborn son Max, one for The Boychik...but I've spent years looking for inspiration to strike so I could mark The Girlchild. I was tempted a number of times to go searching for something appropriate, but I knew from experience that when the time and image were right, they would make themselves known.

She came to visit recently with her boyfriend and a girl we refer to as my "other daughter". The Other Daughter wanted a tattoo, a dragonfly. Now The Tall Guy and I have a thing about dragonflies. They appear all over our home, and we've considered naming our farm after them. As soon as it was mentioned, I knew that was the right one. And as luck would have it, The Girlchild decided she wanted to get her first tattoo, as well. What a great bonding with my baby, my first child, the one I loved so much that I cried when I learned I was pregnant with her brother. I loved her so, I didn't see how I could possibly have any room in my heart for the new baby (it turned out that I did, of course).

We have a rocky past, The nina and I. We haven't lived together for a very long time. She has her bitterness and I have my regrets. We don't always understand each other. I don't know if she listens when I give her advice. I don't know if I have the right to give her any advice, considering our history. But I still love her with everything in my soul. I hope when she goes to Hawaii to study for her Doctorate, she will look at her tattoo from time to time and remember when we were marked together. I hope she knows how enormously proud I am of her spirit and her drive. And I hope she forgives my mistakes and remembers that, like the dragonfly, we all go through changes before we turn into what we were truly meant to be. Te quiero, Chica.

Saying Goodbye to Summer

It's very sad. Even though fall is my favorite season, we don't feel that we got to experience much of a summer in these parts. We're just not ready for it to be over yet. Garden-wise, this year has been a terrible disappointment. Daily thunderstorms of biblical proportions, very little sun and a regional tomato blight has rendered all our hard work virtually useless. Out of the entire garden we harvested six banana peppers. That's all. Everything else was drowned or devoured by fungus. See this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber.html

On the positive side (and we know to always look for the positive spin), I didn't have to spend an August week in a 2,000 degree kitchen canning our wonderful annual bounty of tomatoes, sauce, pickles, salsa and chutney.

Sigh.

Some good stuff has happened, as well. Football starts this week. I got a new tattoo. The Girl-Child came to visit for four very loud and busy days. The Tall Guy and I came into a windfall - a business associate had a book sale with a jillion leftovers, which I was then allowed to browse at my leisure. The result? Almost twenty boxes of books, including two complete Time-Life Series. One is the Home Repair & Improvement series of 35 volumes; the other is the Encyclopedia of Gardening with 28 volumes. I picked up books on furniture building, alternative energy for home use, herbs, landscaping, labyrinths, sundials, homesteading and a dozen organic gardening primers. Also a ton of fiction, biography, memoir, sociology and political commentary, spirituality, women's studies, black history, mysteries, games and even a book on CD. It adds up to a winter's worth of reading and research, I'm very excited about it. The only problem (and book addicts can relate) is that there are SO MANY choices, I don't really know where to begin!

So how was your summer?