I am a croning and mature woman, with sun damaged skin from excessive exposure to the sun without sunscreen, because my Mom never said to me, "better put on sunscreen."
Any of you out there who worshiped in the sun years ago, and now have kind of sagging, mature, freckled and blotchy skin?
Where would you suggest I put this future tatoo?
I want something that tells of who I am. I want to express that I am part of a tribe and clan!!!
This morning I was thinking about the time our kids all got the same tatoo between the upper shoulders of their back. See photos.
This proves they are from the same tribe and clan. (Makes me think of the enduring tatoos discovered on the mummified skin of the "Ice Man" who was found in a high alpine valley as the glaciers melt from the Alps of Switzerland.)
Our daughter had come home for our youngest sons collage graduation, and our oldest son was home on leave from the Navy for the occasion, and right after the graduation ceremony off they went to the tatoo parlor.
They revealed their matching tatoos at the graduation party and reception later that evening.
It is a pretty cool tatoo. The image is called the Huguenot Cross.
My husband is from South Africa, but generations ago, during the Religious Wars in Europe ( 1524-1648), his noble family left what is now the country of Belgium, but was then part of France, because of religious persecution, and emigrated to Capetown, which was a Dutch/English colony.
The Huguenot Cross represents one as being descended from French Huguenot ancestry.
The family name is still in ownership of one of the oldest vineyards and wine producers in the Stollenboch area of South Africa. His ancestral family took their vineyard grape slips and cuttings with them to transplant in their new world and home.
Over 400 hundred years later, the children's intrepid, hearty, and courageous ancestors will be remembered. They know exactly from who, and from where, they have come.
I am not so lucky to be able to claim a tribe or clan.
My ancestors must have been brigands and on the run from the law.
On my Mom's Father's side: they came to Nova Scotia from Scotland and Ireland around the late 1600's and early 1700's, about the time of the English persecutions and wars of those times in those lands.
Other than that, I can't trace them any further back. Their name on the old records may not even have been the original name of the clan they came from in Scotland. They may have changed their name to protect themselves.
So, I create my own stories for them.
The later women who ended up in Indiana, where I am originally from, were some pretty fierce looking, robust, and husky females. Thanks to them, I have wide shoulders, thick waist, and a twitchy temperament. LOL
However, I am lucky that my maternal grandmother can trace her lineage to Holland. I even have distant relatives living there. Nothing exceptional in her history.
My ancestors on my Daddy's side, were two German mercenary brothers during the American Revolution, fighting for the British. But then, seeing the advantages of staying in this wonderful country instead of going back to a over populated area of southern Germany with no chance of inheriting the family farm, they switched sides, and later were awarded land grants.
So again, lost heritage, other than the brothers came from Germany.
Who didn't come from Germany, England, Scotland, or Ireland in the early days of our American history?
Sigh................
So, who am I really? Who is my tribe and clan, other than my children?
I suppose I can look at it as being the maternal progenitor of a new clan. Yes?
Thanks for listening.
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