Bereft...Briefly

Bereft.  

That's the only word I could come up with.
I lost one of my most favorite earrings.
I might as well have lost my arm.

I have a few pieces of jewelry that are in constant rotation. Or are just constant.

This jewelry is me.
It is part of my persona. My personality. My me.

One is a bead necklace that I made from $3.00 worth of African trade beads purchased in 1976.  I strung those babies together and have been wearing them ever since. Not every day but easily once a week. I've worn them when beads were in, I've worn them when beads were out, I've worn them.

They have broken more than a few times and I've been down on my knees in parking lots,  department stores and the floorboards of my car scrambling for the survivors.  Every once in a while I purchase a few new beads and restring them all together. At this point I'm not even sure how many of the original beads there are left.

And then there are my silver cuff bracelets.   Again, in style, out of style, who cares, my style.
Mexico City, 1975, I spotted this square silver bracelet in a market store. I wanted it BAD and knew I probably couldn't afford it. My Spanish was decent but I sent my nice Mexican boyfriend in to negotiate a better "non gringa" price. Fifty pesos later and the pulsera was mine. It has barely left my wrist since.

It did break once, but I quickly had it soldered back together. The fact that it was in two pieces was NOT going to stop me from wearing it.

That bracelet has snorkeled, surfed, snow mobiled, horsebacked and been present at my wedding and the birth of all three of my children in addition to traveling the world. Now it has friends. Four other bracelets have joined it over the years and I definitely make some noise. The girls swear they can always find me in a store because they can hear my bracelets clanking. I'm okay with that.

My slightly more recent obsession is with a pair of turquoise earrings. I have only had them about 15 years maybe. Actually I am on my second pair. I loved, loved, loved the first pair so much that after about a year I saw them still in the store and bought a second pair. Just in case. Over the years I lost first one, then another. Now I am down to the last two earrings.
Or one.

The other night I was getting ready for bed, looked in the mirror and -GASP!-I only had on one earring. Where was the other one? I searched my clothes. I searched the car. I retraced my steps in the street where I had been walking the dog. Nothing.
I wasn't that upset. I figured it would turn up. I knew I had both of them earlier in the evening. It couldn't have gone far.
Still, the next morning I reached instinctively for those turquoise earrings and had to stop and think for a minute when there was only one.
And then the next day, there was still only one.
I was having trouble getting dressed.
None of my other earrings worked. None of them. No matter what I had on. No matter what earrings I tried.
Those turquoise earrings make my eyes bluer, my hair blonder, my face smile-ier.
I need them.
I was wondering if I could have a mate made, maybe. But I'd never get the turquoise to match.
Maybe I would have to have the whole pair duplicated.
Or maybe I would have to find another pair of perfect earrings. How traumatic is that?

And then.
And then I did the laundry.
Yes, I had checked my clothes.
But I had not checked the bottom of the hamper which is where my little earring was hiding.
Bereft for a few days.
Blessedly gleeful now.

But just in case, I'm going to start looking for a back up pair now.

Earrings and necklace together.

Happy!