Tag: charmed

Pick One, No. 4

Question 1733: Charm or I.D. bracelet? (and why…)

On, so very easy for me. There’s nothing wrong with an I.D. bracelet. In fact, probably there have been times when I was called Betty and Betsy and Peggy and Debby that it would have been nice to hold up a bracelet that proclaimed, “BECKY,” and say, “Talk to the wrist.”

Names are good, especially if you like yours and it has meaning for you.

But it’s charms, for this Aries…


Charms are places I’ve been, things I’ve seen. Dreams I’ve dreamed. People I’ve known who have loved me and who I have loved. They are my novels and my characters. Symbols with meanings for me. My varied interests: quirky, true, and passionate.

Microcosms, those bracelets, and I have a baseball in a little gold box that still needs to go on one of my character bracelets.


I have this sweet bracelet, too, that belonged to my mother. For many years, it had a charm for each of her first four grandchildren: Daniel, Josh, Sarah, Gina. One of the times she lived here, I was able to find a company that sold a similar one for her to add her fifth grandchild, Aaron.

Definitely charms.

Memory Lane, with honors

Y’all want to do a little time traveling with me? Back in 2006, I shared an eBay find on my blog. When I was a senior in high school, on awards day, I won the English and Journalism awards. For these, I was given small medals that I later put on a bracelet with other gold charms. I also had a silver bracelet for my silver charms. Charms have meaning to those who wear them. Even charms that were not real gold or real silver had deep sentimental value.

Except for my rings, all my jewelry was stolen in a home break-in when I was in graduate school. My mourning for those charms was deep, because they had been coming to me since I was in fifth grade. They were from my parents. From school. From church. They celebrated milestones and accomplishments, friendships, and boyfriends and love. Charms are symbols of a person’s life, and it hurts to lose them.

When eBay came around, I would periodically look for things I’d once had, including those awards medals. In 2006, I found the Journalism award. It was from Balfour, and when it came, it was like having a piece of my history returned to me.

I tucked it safely away, and periodically, I’d check eBay again in case the English award pendant ever showed up. And THREE TIMES, because I never learn my damn lesson, I found one and bought it, and THREE TIMES, I got the Herff Jones version, which is not what I had and didn’t match the Journalism replacement.


I continued to check, and only one time did I find the Balfour English pendant, and it had been sold five days earlier.

Fourteen years later, in a text exchange with Marika in which we discussed the current sad condition of merchants who will rip you off, she said, “Stay away from eBay.” And not that I’m contrary or anything, it just reminded me that I hadn’t checked eBay in a while for the English award, and…

Guess what came today?

Now they are reunited. They are slightly different in tone, and one has a textured back, which probably means they weren’t manufactured the same year, but they are the same style as my originals. I found a gold-toned bracelet for them. Because I’m laid off and can’t buy real gold–and ha ha, couldn’t when I was employed, either–but I will wear these with pride. Not because I won two awards a million years ago that nobody but me remembers, but because I have defied thieves and reclaimed the symbols of my memories.

Tiny Tuesday!

Recently, during research I was doing for my work-in-progress, I thought about the old TV show “The Wild Wild West.” We did watch it when I was a kid, but I fear a lot of it was over my head. (I’ve never seen the Will Smith movie.)

Anyway, the show is often credited with helping create steampunk. Though steampunk is a fashion trend that mostly slipped right by me, I’m fascinated by it.

If I were sewing, which I’m not, I’d be daydreaming about how to make doll fashion from what I already own, including these little charms. Not pictured here are a bunch of keys. I love keys and locks.

Tiny Tuesday!


Last Thursday I finally remembered that I had ordered a goat charm to join the ram charm on one of my bracelets and went to pick him up after transport. He’s very handsome.

He’s posing in front of a couple of Jenny Lewis CDs that my Capricorn gave me for my birthday. He says they are from Eva, too, so she gets to listen to them with me. She’s quite the vocalist herself, you know, though she tends more toward the Mariah Carey range.

Scrying

There are days when I swear that “scrying” is in my job description.

Speaking of crystal balls, this tiny crystal is on one of my charm bracelets. I think it was a gift from Tom’s parents many years ago when I wanted some crystal charms. They always find unique gifts that I never know exist. Many larger versions of this hang in windows around Houndstooth Hall to send rainbows inside from the sun.

Rusty

When I was redoing my necklace/bracelets, I texted Lynne a group of charms I was going to put on one bracelet and said, “Bet you’d never guess the theme of this bracelet. And it ain’t Texas.”

She answered, “It might ‘rust.'”

She was referencing one of the four main characters in my second unpublished novel, and I had been sure she would say, “the second book.”

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Rusty is possibly one of the most vivid and dominating characters I’ve written because she is so full of contradictions. In a book balanced with three other major characters, which also includes two VERY strong characters who don’t even have POVs in this novel, she has to have a really strong voice to hold her own.

She is at once fragile but unbreakable, teeming with emotional conflict but very sure of who and what she loves, mystical and yet able to cut right through the bullshit to the bare bones of an experience.

I realized how strong her voice is when I found this journal. It was an accidental find–I was actually looking for notes on my first unpublished novel.

Every page contains songs Rusty wrote. I am not a songwriter, but it doesn’t matter. Rusty’s songs gave me instant recall of the journey she takes in that novel though I haven’t read it for many years.

If wishes could come true, my late friend Riley would be here with me, because I know he could turn these songs into something special, both by extracting only the lyrics he wanted then by putting music to them. He may be the only person I’d be brave enough to hand this flood-damaged book to and say, “Please make magic for me.”

I’ve never been as courageous as Rusty–probably why I needed to write her.