woke up today with the strangest feeling in my stomach – a gnawing sense of purposelessness. my first day of unemployment, and i couldn’t even bring myself to have a lie in.

instead, i filled my day with errands and phone calls and cleaning. the kind of cleaning you never really have time for – re-organising drawers, sorting through old clothes and shoes, and cleaning my jewellery. (how strange, i just typed and re-typed that word, but it still looked weird…turns out, the american english version, “jewelry” now looks too odd to my eyes. go figure.)

going through my jewellery always makes me a bit wistful because it so tangibly reflects different periods in my life. my jewellery is so readily demarcated by age and personal era. my turquoise collection is from my late teens, my amber from my early twenties, my garnets from my later twenties, my peridot and glass beads from my early thirties – the infatuation with different stones paralleling different phases of where and who i was in life at that time.

stirring through all these pieces also stirs up memories of relationships. more than most other objects, jewellery is so often a physical representation of the emotional ties we once had. the gifts of past lovers, long lost friends, family members now gone, their history now memorialised by the holding onto. the pink heart earrings that were a valentine’s day gift. the grandchildren’s charm bracelet. the gold wedding ring from a dissolved marriage. the silver bangle from my foreign exhange parents. the garnet ring i exchanged with my lost friend beth. the amber earrings from my university girlfriend. no longer jewellery i wear, but mementos of the past that i can’t bring myself to part with.

intermingled with them are the loved treasures of those still much missed. the miniscule diamond from my brother’s first christmas. the coyote pendant my dad gave me when i left home. the souvenirs from cambodia, new orleans, amsterdam. the coveted kaleidoscope necklace from my mum for my birthday. the tin bubblegum-machine ring from my dear friend jo. the blue quartz earrings alex made for me as a going away present. the delicate stringed bracelet my sister gave me when she was 12. the red glass dangles from my first weekend with jonno. reminders of people and places held dear to the heart, the little trinkets and presents presence, that make me feel close to those so far away.

and so i spent several hours today cataloging this old mish-mashed collection of recollections. sorting through tangles, polishing away the tarnish, pairing up twos. and as i did so, i let the twinges of sadness and longing play at my heart, unboxed old aches and ghosts, brought good memories back to gleaming bright, turned them over in my hand and mind, letting them catch the light…

then nestled them carefully back in their velvet, put them neatly away, and closed the drawer.

my morning jacket – golden

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike