The Ginko Leaf

[this is a picture of my sister and & in the fall of 1996 raking "OK" in the yard of yellow ginkgo leaves]

Sarah and I just got back from Washington DC. We met our Dad and his wife Karen there on Tuesday. Dad wanted to go to the Restoring Honor Rally on the 28th. It ended up being a GREAT experience. While we were there we went to several of the Smithsonian museums, saw the monuments, and ate some wonderful food!!! In fact I think I ate the best meal of my life there. Anyways while we were walking around we were passing Ginkgo trees left and right. The leaves were just starting to turn yellow on the edges. I mentioned something about how pretty it would be to have a ginkgo tattoo. It was pretty much a 2 minute conversation for my sister to enthusiastically agree on the concept and we then started to look for a tattoo shop with good artists. I think she and I both were itching for a new tattoo, but even more so this tattoo has special meaning to both of us.

While Sarah and I were growing up we lived in Jonesboro Arkansas. We had the biggest Ginkgo tree in the state in our yard. It was growing beside the 7 ft brick wall that surrounded our back yard. We spend countless hours in that tree playing "spy" and just pretending that we were whatever we wanted to be. One year Sarah fell out of the tree onto the brick sidewalk outside wall...that was scary! In either September or October the leaves would turn a bright yellow and fall; covering our back yard with yellow ginkgo leaves. To say the least when I think of the ginkgo tree I think of sisterhood. I think of growing up and the memories we made; it captures a time in my childhood that was the happiest. It's pretty hard to describe how many emotions and memories a leaf can contain. I'm sure in Sarah's mind she has a different set of memories when she looks at the same leaf.

While in DC I learned some very interesting things about Ginkgo Trees...

#1 The Ginkgo Tree was the only tree to survive the Hiroshima's bombings blast site.

#2: The Ginkgo is a prehistoric tree. Many different ginkgo species that are now extinct are found in the same soil as the dinosaurs.

#3: The word ginkgo means "long life".

now i havent done the research on all that yet...so i'll report back to tell you which are true.