Tattoo

My cousin said I should wait to get a tattoo until I've wanted one for a year. Well, the time has come! Yep, I'm gosh darn sure I want to join the inked masses. Now the hard part - deciding where and what design.

I'm certain about a few things regarding both design and placement. A big motivation for me to get a tattoo is to have a visual, permanent expression and reminder of my spirituality. I'm a quiet person, yet someone who has strong beliefs and often yearns to open up. Wearing my beliefs is one way to help me do this. So, I want to get a Buddhist-inspired design; probably something involving my favorite auspicious symbol - the glorious endless knot.

I've been going back and forth about how simple or detailed I want it, and this brings me to the question of placement. My original idea was the inside of my wrist. The inner wrist is a little space and would only accommodate a simple design, maybe something like this. But I'm also drawn to intricate pieces that incorporate other Buddhist-inspired elements, like this one (second tattoo down the page.)

Somehow, the inner wrist seems like a very out there location. Yes, I could cover it up with long sleeves (though one problem is that I have long arms, and sleeves often come up short). I do want the tattoo in a place where I can see and enjoy it (no lower back, for many reasons). But will the wrist just be too much? What about a bit further up my forearm?

I came across a tattoo artist in based in Barcelona that I LOVE. If I had extra moola laying around, I would take a little trip to commission this guy. His name is Jondix and he specializes in 'sacred geometry,' working mostly in black and white. Two of my favorites of his are here and here.

Lacking a trip to Spain, we did hear about an artist working here in Seattle who has quite a bit of experience with Hindu and other Asian designs. Her work is beautiful (I especially like the waves behind the squid in the last piece), and I'm anxious to meet with her to spin some ideas and get her take on the right placement for me.

The Weight of Stuff

An interesting post today from Knute Berger on crosscut.com about Americans' happiness over time and distance. I was (smugly) satisfied to read that us Westerners are happier than those living in other parts of the country, but what really caught me was the quote from Bill McKibben's Deep Economy about the "American Paradox:"

"Since 1957, the number of Americans who say they are 'very happy' has declined slightly, from 35 to 30 percent. We are twice as rich and no happier. Meanwhile, the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has more than doubled, and increasingly our teens and young adults are plagued by depression."

To me, this is a major issue that I wish more people were talking about. The consequences of a continual drive for "material progress" permeate every layer of society, from how we relate to our friends and family, to how much we're willing to work, to how far we're willing to go to buy giant houses (and set off a cascade of economic turmoil!).

The weight of consumption really hit me during the holidays. While visiting Justin's parents in Kerrville, we drove through San Antonio to eat some (damn good) barbeque. Or, I should say, we drove around San Antonio on the ubiquitous Texas loop highway that has decimated the city's downtown. The big-box sprawl was truly mind-boggling. I could not believe how many Targets and Best Buys I counted; it seemed like one passed every couple of miles for miles upon miles. How could people want to buy all of this stuff? Is this really people's ideal use of hill country land?

I decided that night to go on a consumption diet. In the spirit of The Compact, I committed to buy nothing new for one month. I knew a month was not a long time, but, to be honest, I was really nervous about what it would be like. I felt inspired by The Compact participants' one-year commitment and promised to extend my diet if one month flew by like no big deal.

And indeed, a month turned out to be pretty easy, especially since I was living off the pleasure of having new clothes and books from Christmas. So I held on for February... and much of March... and just last weekend bought my first new item, a book about hiking the Wonderland Trail from REI. (I would have purchased it used from Amazon or something, but we had to mail our camping reservations the next day. So a lack of planning got me.)

We've been buying some new backpacking gear with our REI dividend, but I'd like to get back on The Compact train. I feel GOOD not buying anything - really, not even worrying about buying anything. Shopping is stressful and time-consuming (particularly as a graduate student, when time and money are in short supply). I feel a sense of lightness every time I toss a J. Crew or Williams-Sonoma catalog in the recycling bin without a glance.

There's much more to this story that I want to discuss, like the Buddhist and environmental reasons for breaking out of the purchasing routine and the economic implications of a massive slowdown in American consumer spending. So, more later. For now, I'll just say that I, for one, am happier with my life when it's removed from the drive for material wealth. I refuse to be a victim of the American Paradox.

Happy with Hills

Training for the Whidbey Half-Marathon has forced me to get comfortable integrating some hills into my running routine. Here's the upcoming course I'm facing (as I plugged it into mapmyrun.com from the race website). You can click on 'view elevation' to get a glimpse of the rolling hills:

I've always been a Green Lake or Burke-Gilman runner, seeking out flat terrain in this hilly city. But, thinking about the pain that will ensue if I don't get my legs accustomed to going uphill, I've been trying new routes the last few weeks, like this one and this one.

I wish I could say running hills was getting easier. But so far it's still really hard work. On Tuesday, I set out to do two laps around the Discovery Park trail, a 100% increase from my previous encounters with this trail. I completed it, but not without feeling seriously nauseous in the middle.

The psychology of running, and physical activity in general, is really interesting to me. I intellectually know that my mind can put serious limits on how far I can go, but it's hard to believe that when I'm in the middle of something really tough. I recorder in my head around mile 3.5 of the Discovery Park run would have caught a storyline like, "What was I thinking, trying this? My body is way too tired out from yoga yesterday. My legs are like lead, probably because my iron levels are low again. Okay, about to puke, must stop now." Somehow, I pushed through and ended the run feeling perfectly gleeful.

In vipassana practice, Rodney would label these thoughts doubt and advices dealing with this emotional hinderance by acknowledging that doubt is arising. I suspect that a similar strategy would help my running doubt as well. At least being aware that I am prone to several miles of doubt will help me make it through to an easier state of mind, particularly in the upcoming race.

And running more hills will no doubt help too. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be a wild, hill-running fiend.

Intellectual, Physical, Spiritual, Sensual, Social

Hi, Katherine here. Welcoming myself to the blogosphere.

I'm going to use this space to document life's goings-on. There are probably blogging rules that say you should limit the scope of your blog, but I don't think there's one category of my life that could fill an entire blog. Besides, my life is all about exploring different ways to express myself in this world, and I want to capture that here.

I've been trying to think about how to organize my ramblings, and the answer popped out at me this morning from a passage in my current book:

(Lata, the protagonist, is seeing her best friend, Malati, for the first time since summer break)

'I've had enough of myself for awhile, and I want to hear something different. What's your news?'

'What sort of news do you want?' asked Malati. 'Intellectual, physical, political, spiritual, or romantic?'

These categories pretty well sum me up! A few slight modifications though:

• I may occasionally mention political matters, but not often enough to warrant a separate label. Political thoughts will be lumped under the intellectual heading.
• As a married woman, I'll keep life's romantic tidbits off the web, thank you very much. I'm going to replace this category with 'sensual,' to cover food, music, art, etc.
• One piece of my life not captured by the above is my social experiences - being with Justin, friends, family. This is a dimension of myself that I often let fall to the bottom of the list. Perhaps all the more reason to document it here.

And so it begins! I know christen thee, new blog, as the vessel of my quest to balance the intellectual, physical, spiritual, sensual, and social.