Something Old, Something New

I guess I'm in a sentimental mood, or maybe I am just sentimental. I think it's the latter. I'm sentimental about stuff, people, places, music and photos. I fit in lately, as things like, retro, vintage, up-cycling, and going green are popular. I don't think it has always been so trendy (example: the 80's). I'm not one for trends: capris, Ikea, Justin Beiber, and Farmville. I think they are silly and leave little scope for imagination!

Even when this photo was taken of me,
the tiny ring was hiding in the attic, in an old toiletry case.

When my grandparents passed away, when I was in my early 20's, I got their wood furniture from the 1950's. Maybe it was trendy back when my dad was a boy, but now it is old. Good, and old. I also received a small, and long forgotten, antique ring of my great-grandmother's. It is now more than 100 years old. It had a tiny diamond, and a thin band, for a person who's genes did not pass on to me. It also had an antique setting, and whimsical engraving on the outside.

For the last 15 years (before that, maybe 30 years) it has been sitting in a box, taking up beautiful, dark space. I would see it now and then, like when we moved. It only fit on my pinky, and made the small-ish finger look like a sausage. Another drawback was that if I wore it, it would break. Besides its beauty, it was useless, and unseen. It's daintiness, and beauty was almost a complete waste on me.

Before Christmas, my husband took me into my friends jewelry store. He asked if they could take the modest diamond out of the setting from my engagement ring and put it into the little antique ring. They also made the ring bigger and stronger, to suit the farm-hands I inherited from my mother. When they returned the ring I felt all the sentiment and tenderness I could feel, for a thing.

I felt the presence of a woman I never met. She was the mother of one of the best people I've known. The diamond was from my sweet young husband, years ago. I put the new/old ring on my hand, a hand that has been changed with the generations, and felt all that love.

I know that jewelry is a thing, and I strive not to be taken by shiny things, and yet it conveys what is in my heart.

Today when I read the blog my friend keeps for her jewelry store, the very same shop which artfully made my grandmother's ring mine, I realized sentimental is trendy. All this time I've been thinking trendy wasn't my taste. It turns out the whole point of jewelry is sentiment.