Talisman

When does something as innocuous as a piece of jewelry go from being an accessory to a necessity?

You miss it terribly when it's not there, even just for the day. You keep touching that area, unconsciously adjusting something that is not there, shocking yourself when, nope, nothing but air...

I used to think it was my ear cuff. Yes, I am a child of the 80s, I have an ear cuff firmly sitting around my earlobe which my students used to think made me super cool cuz they thought it was a piercing and wow, what teacher had they ever run across that had something like that... Um, no, I am not that cool. Frankly, I am so very far from the cool that I would be considered warm. I would go through the pains of showing how uncool my non-piercing actually was so they could see how, yes, it is merely an ear cuff, I am sorry. Please do not tell your parents you want to be like Mizz Tactless and get a cool piercing cuz you would be lying. The saving grace in Hawai'i was that at least it was a plumeria. (Picture me wiping the sweat off my brow in relief, or something.)

But there are mornings where my ear cuff was maybe wedged improperly during the night and screw it, I can leave it at home and no one is the worse for wear.

Then there was the bracelet.

Which really became "a" bracelet. I have always worn something on one of my wrists. Habit more than anything...from the cool (ha, we've been over this) gold name-bracelets that my family made me wear, you know, in case I forgot who I was, to the plastic black and then neon (hello 80s) o-rings that were the fad, to pieces of broken chain clipped together with more broken pieces of chain and baby-pins...cuz I was so punk-rockin'-gothy...or something...to the bracelet my mom gave me so I could please, god, please, take off that "porqueria" that both of my parents hated...and therefore I must wear and make many copies and maybe get my friends to wear...what a rotten kid I was, I swear...

Then I learned how to drive and take directions and lord if my bracelet/watch/thing on my wrist du joir (sp?) did not save me from turning right when I should have turned "my other right." I officially cannot tell my left from my other left. Part of my mild dyslexia. Whatever I wear, be it silver, gold, or rubber, it's on what I've come to know as my left wrist, cuz when you make the "loser" "Ls" with your thumbs and forefingers, it's the one I can "read." (Yep, can read the letters just as easily backwards...so it's taken some training.)

You'd think I'd be lost without the bracelet...but um, I can deal, it's not something I keep reaching and touching and making sure it's there...

My necklace however...the one I've had and worn since I was a little braider at the "Braids for Maids" booth at the Southern Renn Faire? The one that is constantly confused for the "hellraiser" box? The one on a getting-to-be-ratty piece of leather that I should replace again...I totally forgot it at home and I can not stop thinking about it and reaching to adjust where that little box should be touching that groove that your two collar bones create.

It's driving me batty!

I once almost lost that little pendant. My mom, SIL, niece, and I were at Babies R Them or something and of course I was goofing around with my neice and in one of those times where I was lifting her into or out of one of the demo sets of furniture...I looked down to do my necklace readjust and the little pendent was GONE. The ring that attached it to the leather was twisted open...I was not a happy camper...

Yes, we scoured the store. Yep, got on my hands and knees and went back and forth and back again to all the places my niece and I had been goofing at...yes, it was indeed underneath one of the big pieces of furniture I'd lifted her into/out of...the amount of relief...I can't even describe.

It's unnatural really, my attachment.

But it's one of the few things from the last days of my childhood that I still have. I've gotten rid of so many things over the years...so many things...and they really are just things...except for this little talisman of mine.