Current jewelry, aside from the watch and engagement ring, which doesn't really count, is made only of glass, silver, and wood. Somehow I like the basicness of that. I also like that each thing has a story.
I don't really count the watch and ring because I wear them every day but there are things to say about both. The watch has a solar battery, with the charging panel as its face. Because of this I'm always pushing up long sleeves a bit so it doesn't sit in the dark all day and go dead on me; though it must charge quickly because this has never happened, no matter how long and thick my sleeves. The ring is the engagement ring only; the jeweler made it 1/4 size small and the wedding ring 1/2 size too small so they wouldn't fall off, and at the time I never considered that I'd actually want to take them off for rowing. My wedding ring is thin and it's absolutely plain, in the Jewish tradition, so it can be worn with the engagement ring. However, I have short stubby fingers and don't like the look of two rings together unless they're made to look like one, so between that and the fact that it's hard to get on and off, I rarely wear my wedding ring. The engagement ring is so pretty that people are always noticing it for the first time, thinking they couldn't possibly have missed noticing it before (apparently they could have) and asking if I've just gotten engaged. This has happened quite a few times, when I've changed jobs or for whatever reason been spending time with a new group of people.
The earrings are blue and turquoise glass surrounded by silver. I wear them often, because they go well with so many clothes. I bought them in Portsmouth, NH, during that long awful of 2001 that I spent away from Rudder in (very) snowy Worcester, MA. There were a few high points to that winter, though: proper wintery weather, starting this journal (at its original Diaryland site) and getting to pay a couple of visits to my friend SWooP up in Maine, and to meet her husband and her remarkable daughter. That was when we visited Portsmouth, which is full of little galleries selling nifty bits of glass, and when I bought the earrings, so they remind me of a good day with people I like.
The necklace has bits of silver chain interspersed with tiny blue and tinier yellow beads, and I made it myself. It's always a good feeling to wear something you've made, especially if it's well done enough that it's not completely obvious you've made it.
My hair is up in a twist. In it is a stick, pencil-sized but with four sides. It's made of a reddish wood and on one side at the top an artist has inlaid tiny bits of turquise and agate. It is the only thing keeping all of my hair up, and it's holding just fine. I love the basicness of the wood, and of an entire hairstyle based on one plain stick.
I do have some fancier jewelry: some rubies Rudder gave me, pearls, an emerald pendant, a small sapphire ring. I tend to wear my simplest things most often. What I really love in my possessions, though, in jewelry as well as other things, is when they have a story or a memory attached.
Posted by dichroic at January 12, 2005 01:46 PMEr, Portsmouth is in NH, not RI. I am glad you remember our stroll through town so fondly, though :-)
Posted by: Swoop at January 13, 2005 05:32 AM