A Charm Bracelet Story

I have a gentleman that comes into my shop to have me look over his boxes, bags and trays of junk costume jewelry. He is a sweet funny and energetic guy that is always so excited with the treasures he has collected around town, EBAY, Goodwill and the like. I rummage through it between customers and tell him if he has anything unusual or valuable and once in a while, I purchase something. He gave me a rose brooch as a New Year's present. A sweet guy indeed.

Anyhow, on his last visit as I poured through and over his treasure boxes; I came across this charm bracelet.

It has a collection of sterling charms with the dates on them running from the 1970's through the 1980's. They all say ABWA on them and some inspiring, goal setting word or words. On research it was from different events of the American Business Women's Association. Someone worked towards all these goals and achieved them. She especially achieved them during the 1970's when not many women were in business or in the corporate world. She must have been proud, felt accomplished as she added each charm to this bracelet.

I pulled the bracelet from my junk dealer and asked if I could buy it. He looked at it and said sure. When he and the customer at the counter asked why I wanted it ( was it for the sterling silver to be melted down ? ) -  I said that I felt touched by this bracelet. That someone, a woman who I have never met, worked so hard to gather these charms by her accomplishments only to have it end up in jewelry scrap. I was embraced by her journey and felt an immediate kinship with this woman who probably put this bracelet on everyday as she readied herself for her career, not just a job, and felt pride in herself. I am her sister, having been mostly self employed myself since the early 1980's.

The chain the charms are on isn't much, just plated metal, so maybe her budget never allowed for the frivolous purchase of a lovely sterling silver charm chain. I think that means she was given each of these charms as part of her journey in the business world. She earned them. She treasured them.

What made me even sadder was that she had no one to leave this bracelet to. Perhaps no daughter or granddaughter or son, to pass on her journey, her lessons. That whoever searched through her things after her death ( did she die ? ) just tossed it aside to be given as a charity donation or part of an auction.

I have this bracelet now. I treasure it. It will become part of her legend for me and a reminder of goals set and met, goals worthy of an award that is worn close to the pulse of life that runs through your body. Goals made in life, set in precious metal. I will keep it with this story, this imagined part of her story and pass it down to my own granddaughter, hopefully inspiring in her a life of accomplishment, joy, work and reward.

The bracelet has a home now and a story and a future. An inspirational journey for the next generation of American Business Women.

It is always just after Christmas is over, and New Year's Day is upon us; that I decide I am ready for the holiday. I want to start at that late date to get things ready. Ideas pop into my head and I think. " Yay, Christmas! Time to decorate. " I think my interior calendar is just a bit off!

Anyhow, I vow that this year I will make more time for my own projects. Things I want to experiment with and things I want to finish. I have all manner of jewelry and metal smithing work just waiting for me to have time to get to it. I am doing it in 2015!

Thank you my friends for the love you have shown me, the trust you put into me as a retailer, the creativity you have that so inspires me and most of all for the friendship shown me. I am ever so grateful and ever so happy! Happy New Year all!

Oh my, but this year has moved by so quickly and now we are just two weekends away from Christmas. I am approaching the holiday with an attitude of gratitude. I don't mean to be flippant but I am ever so grateful for so very much.

First off, I have two incredible men in my life, Phil and the now adult age, Jake. They keep me grounded yet moving forward in what I do. They see my creativity as work and how it provides for our living. I am grateful that a beloved companion has come into our home. Our darling Clementine. Just when I had despaired of ever finding a dog, I saw her on a trading site and now she is sound asleep on the floor next to me. I feel happiest in my day when I rub my hands through her ever soft and fuzzy fur. A giant teddy bear on four padded feet.

I love what I do. I love working in my shop and talking with people. I love seeing a project through to completion with a customer. I love being the inspiration and assistant with a person's creativity. I get goosebumps when I think of someone taking their vision and turning it into reality. With a job like mine, it will never be boring, never ordinary.

Port Townsend. What can I say. I am home here, have a home here. It is my place in the world. Embracing, inspiring, comfortable, a little off center and mistress of the nicest extremes. Quiet, dark winter nights. Vibrant musical summer evenings. All this water and beach. Salt hanging heavy in the air, ready for the cleansing breath that reaches deep into the roots of my soul.

I can go on and on. I am blessed with friends, fellow shopkeepers, companions. I am never wanting for conversation or companionship. I am blessed. Just blessed.

As I wrap up this almost too sentimental post; I am especially happy and grateful for the bright Christmas lights that Jacob strung everywhere around the outside of the house. On the house, the fence, the studio. Blue lights in the salal. White dangling icicles on the porch edges. Handrails wrapped in lively colors, a visual feast for the eyes and a happy spot for the heart to come home to.

A season of delights awaits all of us. We just need to be open and grateful. A full heart is a happy heart.

Not a very productive day today although the weather outside was sunny and fifty degrees. I was using this afternoon as a catch up day for studio work. A few projects, a much needed cleanup and tidying and a few moments to collect my thoughts. I did busy work too. Counted pieces for the shop into little baggies and labeled them. Read the good parts of the Sunday paper. Strung some Christmas necklaces for my display window. Did a bit of Facebook, Pinterest and drew. I am finishing up two more sketches in my living room drawing journal. I did paint crows. Concrete locally cast crows that need to be a deep, solid and rich black. Tomorrow onto the varnishing.

So now I am older. The days have become precious in their passing and I am reflective. I think of my family and friends, now long gone from my life and miss them. I miss what was, the child I was, the adults they were, the family we were. I have gathered memories and hold them close within to the deepest parts of my soul. They can not be shared with people now. They are long dark and gone and I remain aching for the company I never thought I would miss. Birthdays are a time for pause. A time for waking in the small hours of the morning, and letting the heart wind like ribbons through the doors and windows of the soul, reaching for what was and what could be again - all new.

So Jacob is growing out of the house and at 18 years old, he is so ready to leave the nest. I am not ready for him to leave at all. I still picture him at 9, helping us at bead shows, talking about his cat and the cat novels he was reading, playing amongst a huge pile of legos and still wanting bed time stories. The whole world is right when they say that time flies and before you know it, decades have gone by.

This is one of the choices he had in choosing his senior picture for the yearbook of which he is editor. I love this picture. This boy-man looking out into the world, determined, strong, confident. I love the muscles in his arm and the strength in his jaw. My God, but he is a handsome boy!

This is the other photo choice. He likes this one. The smile, he says. This picture reminds him that he is happy, popular and self assured. He feels it is him; that the picture says it is him in the thick of his life. I like it too but I see a senior yearbook picture, old stuck in the mud mom me, as more of a head shot.

WHERE DOES TIME GO AS IT PASSES BY? IS THERE A COLLECTION OF HOURS IN A CLOSET, waiting to be discovered and used? Is time different for the young? Do they see it as a forever moment?

I want to shelter my son and guide him. I want him to have wings and leave the home nest with gratitude and wisdom. With lessons learned enough to share with others. I want so much for him. I want him to be brave and smart and strong and know that we, his parents, love him and only want the best for him. I want him to return over and over again into our arms and home. I want for him a future of endless possibilities. Of health. Of clear blue skies. Of non GMO foods. Everything. I want everything for him.

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. Thinking about politics and elections, children growing up and leaving home, aging and achy bones; just to mention a few things. I seem to spend many hours of the day in thought. Big thoughts, little thoughts, reminders, plans and inspiration seem to come at me from every corner. I feel like a receptor and transmitter all at once. Maybe because it is near Halloween or maybe just because it is fall and I am spending more time indoors, I am thinking about my family and how much I remember of my youth and how much I miss some of them and how if I ever return home nothing and no one will be the same. Thoughts as numerous as the raindrops outside my studio door. Capturing these moments is a bit like containing a sigh or a whisper, they are here for one brief moment and then gone; making room for the next thought and on it goes until the day is done.

This is what I have been doing in the evening then.....