I guess I knew it would be a bird.  I secretly think of my imagined child as my “little sparrow” and I’ve been drawn to images of birds and nests every since I decided I was ready for motherhood.

But I had no idea the path would be so long or so uncertain.  One of my favorite poems (and hymns):

When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:

There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
or, you will be taught how to fly

The chorus of the hymn version says:

Learn to fly,
Learn to fly.
I believe we will surely learn to fly.

Nothing we stand on is ever all that solid anyway.

I needed to give myself a sign of hope that would always be there, no matter what.  Browsing for images of flying birds, I learned that swallow tattoos are the most common: traditionally they mean that a sailor has crossed a certain amount of sea; in the more general sense they represent safe return home. They’re often confused with sparrows, which generally represent more domestic virtues. I was pretty sure I was on the right track, but most of the tattoo-typed images were not quite what I had in mind.

And then I happened to pick up some fantastic antique buttons my grandmother gave me. The buttons are sewn onto a cardboard backing with a wonderful drawing of sparrows nesting at the top. I love the drawing (even more than the actual buttons) and knew right away I was looking at the right birds. I painted them on the kitchen cabinets just to make sure, and then (since they are actually sitting on twigs, rather than flying) I turned the matter over to the experts at Dogstar Tattoo (the most well established and respectable tattoo parlour in the neighborhood) where they had no trouble getting a sparrow into the air.

Me: “My appointment is at 4. Can you leave work early on Monday?”
Paul: “Sure, I can drop you off there and then pick you up.”
Me: “The hell you will. You’re going to sit there and hold my hand the whole &*(#*($#$) time.”
Paul: “Oh. Ok, sweetie.”
(Does this mean I’ve now gotten to the “taking your sweetheart for granted” stage of the relationship?)

Paul was an angel. He did hold my hand the whole time, and honestly I don’t think I could have done it otherwise. However, having said that, it didn’t actually hurt as much as I thought it was going to. Most of the time it was just like uncomfortable scratching, and at the worst, the actual pain was still not as bad as, say, dropping something heavy on your toe. On the other hand, it was certainly not, as one friend described it, “like eating potato chips – you can’t help wanting another one.” But 25 minutes later the guy says, “I think that’s the cutest bird I’ve ever done.” So there we go.

Celebration afterward: Paul took me out for a milkshake. Because I’m totally bad-ass like that.

I’m very pleased with my little sparrow.