the 30-days meme: day eight
A precious item
Just one? This should come with photos, shouldn't it?
Beyond the obvious things I'd desperately want to save from a fire - my laptop; a lifetime of notebooks and journals and books of heavy paper covered in ticket stubs and scrawled notes about what I did with who and when -
• The small stuffed bear I've had since I was three
• Several small boxes of mementos. They have themes; they belong to other people. I like to remember.
• My bike. It was Chris's. It's too big for me. I love it.
• Two necklaces that were my grandmother's. One, which I've never worn, was given to her by a young man who left for the war. The other I know little about, except that once, on the subway, I noticed another woman staring at me. "I have that exact necklace," she said when she saw me. I've never seen another like it. Neither had she, I think.
• Certain signed books. The ones signed by authors I worked with, way back when, mostly, but also Wicked, for so many reasons.
• A tiny red barrette in the shape of three hearts.
And so many more things. My guitar, though I never play it; it has the memory of who I bought it from, and the times I tried to play, and the way one string has a certain buzz, and the way removing one of those cat-head stickers from it left a mark in the varnish; certain rings and other pieces of jewelry; books with inscriptions from others. I'm a keeper, a rememberer, a person who lets things have value, and sometimes more than they should.
And sometimes those things get away. The quilt, handmade by my mother, I accidentally left in the top of a closet and forgot to go back for. Chris's bug-eyed Sprite, a car in pieces that I nevertheless wanted so, so, so much, and my mom felt she had to sell it to his family.
And most of all? My great-grandmother's engagement ring. I knew where it was, in my grandmother's stash of jewelry, tucked carelessly into a drawer in a sideboard-sort-of-thing, rattling around with old political buttons and, I swear to you, gold teeth in a film canister. Emma's ring wasn't fancy or particularly unusual, just a diamond. But it was Emma's. Emma and I were pen-pals when I was little. She drank and smoked and lived to be 103. I used to have a silver dollar from 1888, the year she was born.
I wanted that ring for what it meant to me: a line of women, a last name I've contemplated taking, a history, a family, however small and shrunken. And when my grandmother died, I looked for it, in that drawer of whatnot and what-for.
It was gone. It's never turned up. I have my theories about relatives and their greedy, grabbing fingers, people who see dollar signs rather than stories. What is a ring worth? Whatever you say it is. Its history is so much more precious than its facets, its carats, its shine.
Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 - Your first love
Day 03 - Your parents
Day 04 - Your music
Day 05 - Your definition of love
Day 06 - Your mode of transportation
Day 07 - Your best friend
Day 08 - A precious item
Day 09 - Your beliefs
Day 10 - What you wore today
Day 11 - Your siblings
Day 12 - What’s in your bag
Day 13 - Your day
Day 14 - Where you live
Day 15 - Your childhood
Day 16 - Your first kiss
Day 17 - Your favorite memory
Day 18 - Your favorite birthday
Day 19 - Something you regret
Day 20 - Your morning routine
Day 21 - Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 - Something that upsets you
Day 23 - Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 - Something that makes you cry
Day 25 - Your sleeping habits
Day 26 - Your fears
Day 27 - Your favorite place
Day 28 - Something that you miss
Day 29 - Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 - Your aspirations