As some of you may know, I have a… rocky… relationship with my mother. Things have deteriorated to the point where I have to assume anything that comes from her hand has a hidden trap ready to spring and draw blood.
It was during one of our more vicious interactions I was made painfully aware that most of the jewelry I was wearing were (willfully given and unprompted) gifts from her. For me to continue wearing them, she said, was a hypocrisy. After all, if I rejected her values, why was I still wearing her trinkets?
Challenge, accepted.
I took off the jewelry immediately. And proceeded the following days without them. Which prompted another diatribe from her, that I have cast aside the symbols of my femininity. My father noted I was no longer wearing the earrings he gave me and asked about them. He feared I had hocked them at a pawn shop. I showed him the jewelry tray, and simply said, “I can’t let Mom win this one. Don’t worry, I’ll wear them again, when I want to.” He sighed, then nodded. He’s been more on the receiving end of her vitriol than me lately, so he knew precisely what the battle was about. He told me to tread carefully as I stood up for myself, and he was glad I wasn’t so money deprived I had to pawn them.
The days turned into a week, and her vitriol continued. I realized what the core of her argument was about. My appearance wasn’t to her liking. My hair was too nappy, my afro was an insult. I didn’t show enough cleavage. I didn’t wear heels. I wore slacks and pants. In short, I didn’t dress according to her ideal of femininity.
She was concerned that I would be mistaken as a man in bad drag. (Seriously.) In her worldview, women wore jewelry, makeup, heavily coiffed hair, and “pretty” clothes. In her worldview, there was no room for tomboys after 14 years of age. Makeup could be forgiven because the “natural” look was in. Hair could be forgiven because I did not have $150 to spend on relaxer treatments and/or braiding every month. Because I work as an on-call network technician, not wearing linen and silks could also be forgiven. But a woman MUST wear jewelry, or she isn’t womanly.
The jewelry remained on the dresser. I now had something to prove to myself. Had I allowed myself to be infected with that worldview? Could I continue on with my daily routine without the jewelry?
The first two weeks, I felt naked. Something was seriously unbalanced. My hands couldn’t type correctly as I compensated for a restriction that wasn’t there. My neck especially felt exposed and vulnerable. Only a few people noticed, and even then, only one actually said anything about the lack of the opal pendant. It was a firm reminder, that my jewelry did not define me.
I would come home, and note my jewelry had been moved. She had rooted around to see what was still unworn. I expected her to take them, a vicious reclaiming of jewelry I could not afford to replace. She stopped nagging me about wearing them, and had retreated into sulking silence when the subject came up, only to snap about my ingratitude for a sentence or two.
The third week, I noted I didn’t feel uneasy anymore. There was no compulsion to wear them. Each day, I had the choice to wear them, and each day, I chose not to. As I continued, I noticed something odd about the opal pendant.
The opal was purchased by my mother, for a Christmas present several years ago. She had bugged me and bugged me for something for her to purchase for me. At the time, the offer was not spoiled with expectations. She knew I had not the funds to spend freely on myself, and she did. She truly wanted me to have something special, something to help me feel better about myself. Finally, I relented. I asked for an opal pendant. I have always been fond of opals, but never could afford the visual quality I wanted.
She dragged me to the jewelry store and demanded I pick one out, right then, right there. Ignore the cost, she said. But the prices were too high, I couldn’t justify that kind of money, even if someone else was spending it. I saw an opal that all but called my name but could not accept it. As I was walking out of the jewelry store, she was berating me for thinking about the financial impact. The clerk stopped me just before leaving.
“If you can be patient, we’re having a sale in two weeks. I’m quite sure opals will be included.” She winks at me, and hands me a sale flyer dated two weeks in advance. As I look it over, indeed, the opals are going to be reduced in price by 50% for three days only.
For two weeks, I’m told that I’m an idiot to wait. Surely that particular stone will have been sold by then. She berates me every day until the day of the sale, when she grudgingly returns to the jewelry store with me.
The stone is gone. Replaced by another opal pendant of the same style and shape. The stone on display is supposed to be of the same visual quality as the first stone I saw. But it doesn’t look the same. It is dull, devoid of character, appearing made more of plastic than of a hydrophilic stone. I sigh, and turn for the entrance, where my mother waited for me, gloating.
“Hey, you’re back!” I turn to see the clerk that told me about the sale is coming towards me, with a box in her hand. “Guess what I have!” Her face is brightly lit. She opens the box, inside is the opal I fell in love with. “I took a chance that you would be back. So I put it aside and placed a different stone on display. Will your mother be buying this today? It’s half off the price you saw two weeks ago!”
I wave my mother inside, and she completes the transaction. She asks the clerk why she placed the pendant to side for me. “Some people come in, and just like to throw money around and get any thing that looks glitzy. And some people come in, and look for something that complements them. Your daughter and this particular stone is a good pairing, I could see that two weeks ago. Why waste it on someone that’s going to chuck it into a corner of a jewelry box after wearing it once or twice?”
When I finally put it on Christmas day, it was like a little piece of me fell into place. For over two years, I never took it off, not even in the shower, until a month ago when I challenged myself to go without jewelry.
In that one month period, the vibrant and almost living color the opal had displayed, slowly faded. The reds were the first to fade, followed by the greens and blues. At the end of the third week, the opal appeared to my eyes to be dying. Fading into obscurity.
But, surely, I was just seeing things, right? The pendant was never used in any rites or workings. It featured once in a dream, but even then, it wasn’t charmed in any way. It was just another piece of jewelry, right?
I would pick it up, hold it in my hand to the light. Did my eyes deceive? Did the mere touch infuse it with warmth again? And what was this strange lingering sensation that tickled my fingers after putting it down. Did the opal… miss me?
After a month of these odd sensations and strange feelings of being called to, of being longed for, I had to admit to myself, I am more animist that I cared to admit. Just as I had felt the svartalf’s stone was something special, so did I feel the opal was something special. But where the svartalf’s stone was more a physical link, a key to his world, the opal was just merely an opal, right?
This opal is a living stone. With an identity that was more than chemical structure. It’s glint and play of light was from more than internal fractures. It had a glow that was one part opalescence, one part nearness to me. And to be honest, I did miss it. It has a playfulness that I would tug on absentmindedly when I was nervous. To touch it is calming.
Perhaps, I’m just projecting my own insecurities onto the gem. Perhaps.
I won the challenge I laid at my own feet. I do not use jewelry to define myself, nor my femininity. I can swish my hips fully adorned, or not. Those that watch the hips as I pass, sure don’t care about jewelry! (Not even a wedding ring, the hounds!)
I put the opal pendant back on this morning. There was a tingle where the pendant rested against my skin. It reminded me of the contented sigh the family dog gives when he relaxes against me. Did I imagine a pleading? A request to never be disconnected again?
The rational portion of my mind teases me for my insecurities, for falling for “anyone but me” syndrome.
The animist portion of my mind embraces the neglected friend. Another step closer to connecting with the world around me.
The magician portion scoffs at the idea. Am I not God? Yea, I am. But I am also human.
So why am I writing about this? Telling what still seems to be a silly story? Because this is a part of who I am. And you voyeurs have only seen the high-drama lately. Really, I felt like talking about it, and this is the only place I can.
Make of that, what you may.