Choose Dearests, Choose

GEMS FOREVER
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

As a child, looking through my parents' album collection
I was always drawn to this treasure chest: Gems Forever!

"1962 - Boise"
That's my mom's handwriting, perhaps
when she bought the album for my dad.

I was only 4 at the time, but I can remember her
wearing the sandstone jewelry when we lived in Idaho.

The sparkly set was added a few years later,
when we lived in Neosho and I was 8 or 9.

Still in their original box;
it says "Priscilla" on the inside & "Floyd's" on the outside.

My mother's necklaces make me think of Virginia Woolf's lovely description in To the Lighthouse of the children rummaging around in Mrs. Ramsay's jewelry box:

"And if Rose liked . . . she might choose which jewels she was to wear.

" . . .Jasper offered her an opal necklace; Rose a gold necklace. Which looked best against her black dress? Which did indeed, said Mrs. Ramsay absent-mindedly . . . And then, while the children rummaged among her things . . .

"But which was it to be? They had all the trays of her jewel-case open. The gold necklace, which was Italian, or the opal necklace, which Uncle James had brought her from India; or should she wear her amethysts?

" 'Choose, dearests, choose,' " she said, hoping that they would make haste.

"But she let them take their time to choose: she let Rose, particularly, take up this and then that, and hold her jewels against the black dress, for this little ceremony of choosing jewels, which was gone through every night, was what Rose liked best, she knew. She had some hidden reason of her own for attaching great importance to this choosing what her mother was to wear. What was the reason, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, standing still to let her clasp the necklace she had chosen, divining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite speechless feeling that one had for one's mother at Rose's age. Like all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs. Ramsay thought, it made one sad. It was so inadequate, what one could give in return; and what Rose felt was quite out of proportion to anything she actually was. And Rose would grow up; and Rose would suffer, she supposed, with these deep feelings, and she said she was ready now, and they would go down, and Jasper, because he was the gentleman, should give her his arm, and Rose, as she was the lady, should carry her handkerchief (she gave her the handkerchief), and what else? oh, yes, it might be cold: a shawl. Choose me a shawl, she said, for that would please Rose, who was bound to suffer so."

(120 - 123, emphasis added)
[And thanks to my friend and fellow scholar
Victoria Amador for sharing my reading of this passage]

[Read more about Virginia Woolf:
Fortnightly ~ Quotidian ~ Kitti's List]

***************

Additional Connections

In "The Diamond Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant,
Mme. Jeanne Forestier says to Mme. Mathilde Loisel:
"Choose, my dear."

In "Wild Montana Skies"
John Denver & Emmylou Harris
sing of the conflicted, contemplative character who
was born with the blessing / curse of deep feeling and
" . . . never knew the answers
that would make an easy way . . . "
[kind of like "Rose, who was bound to suffer so"]

In one of my 4th - grade favorites,
Ginnie and the Mystery Doll by Catherine Woolley,
Ginnie and Geneva follow the trail of a long - lost antique doll,
a recently painted portrait of the doll, a red Jaguar,
and -- a missing jewel! -- a conch pearl.

I took a couple of hours to re-read this childhood classic, and was touched by Ginnie's similarity to Rose:

"Ginnie gave a sad little sigh. This was the best, the most beautiful part of the day. The air felt cool when she sat up, but the sand still held the day's warmth and the wind had dropped. A path of molten gold led straight across the silken water to the setting sun." (45)

"The summer days were slipping along now. Ginnie treasured every one. As the summer had advanced, a new world had come into being for her -- the world at the edge of the sea. . . . So, each new day unfolded its own lovely pattern. Ginnie hugged every one to her heart." (83, 85)

As with Rose, Ginnie "loved anything resembling a story" but every now and again she had "the strange sensation [of being] alone in a hostile world" (111, 117).

Need I say it? Bound to suffer so.

Previous Fortnightly Posts in this series
Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor
Heirloom Jewelry
Diamond Studs Are Forever
AND MORE

Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, July 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Mantovani Christmas
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Diamond Studs Are Forever

DIAMONDS
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Thanks to Intersoul for Sound & Graphic

Visual connection: Imitation of Life opening credits, 1959
Sound connection: Shirley Bassey

Long ago (Christmas 1991), when Gerry and I brought Baby Ben to England for the first time, my tiny diamond earring got lost at O'Hare when we were waiting for our flight. The story has become legendary in our family. As previously recounted on The Quotidian Kit ~ May 20, 2013:

The first [diamond that I lost] was a small stud, embedded in the carpet at O'Hare, where my little Ben (age 1 1/2 at the time . . . ) clutched my earlobe in a moment of excitement. When he let go, the diamond was not in my ear, nor in his hand, nor anywhere on the chair or floor as far as we could see. We shook out my hair and clothing to no avail. I treasured these earrings because they had been my first ever Christmas present from Gerry.

Now, one of them was missing, but suddenly it was time for boarding, and I had to walk away; like Lot's wife, I looked over my shoulder! I don't think Ben really understood what had transpired, but he knew that it was something we had not expected. For months afterward, he would reach out to pat my ear and say, "More Mummy earring?" Ah, what's a lost diamond compared to that kind of sweetness? Besides, Gerry soon surprised me with a new set -- to this day, not yet lost! -- so I still have a pair and a spare.

Here's the mate to the missing one, that I still have:

But wait! There's more! As coincidence would have it, you just NEVER know when a ring or an earring might be lost or found. Did I ever see my special little Christmas stud again? No. However, flash forward to Summer 2019 when Ben and Cathleen were flying to Portugal -- and try to guess what they found stuck in the carpet at O'Hare? Let's hope not the same carpet (after 30 years?) and definitely not the same earring, but -- Yes! -- a diamond stud!

They sent me this photo with the caption:
"More Mommy Earring?"

THEN they found another one on the way home!
What's the odds?

I now wear the two that they found as a set, even though they are not quite the same. They surely belong together, as ordained by the Diamond Gods!

And 5 years later,
this one came into my life,
stuck in the carpet of my hotel room
in Kirksville, Missouri ~ October 2024
The diamonds come and go . . .

Quick Aside Re Synchronicity: I knew my sisters would love this story, because our lives are filled with synchronicity. My sister Peg said that these diamond discoveries must derive from some kind of brain pattern theory, "but it's so much more magical to hear it as a random, wonderful coincidence. I'm excited to see where I confront this phenomenon in the next few days, because that is so often how it happens!" Certainly that's how it works with vocabulary words; as my literary friend Laura explained: "I really enjoyed your discussion with your sisters of that uncanny sense, once one learns a new word, of suddenly seeing it everywhere. A good friend told me it's called the Baader-Meinhof effect -- hope naming it doesn't remove any of its uncanny power." Nope, naming merely adds to the magic!

But getting back to those diamonds, sometimes they are not real. What happens then? Remember Luisa in Act One of The Fantasticks? She is a heroine so hopeful and pure - hearted, it hardly matters, diamonds or rhinestones:
El Gallo:
She has a glue paste necklace,
which she thinks is really real.

Luisa:
I found it in the attic, with my mother's name inside.
It is my favorite possession.

El Gallo:
It's her fancy.

Luisa:
It's my pride. . . .

Act Two

El Gallo:
Oh, yes. I steal fancies.
I steal whatever is treasured most. . . .

(Looking at her necklace.)
Precious rhinestones.

Luisa:
Rhinestones?

El Gallo:
Can be precious.
It depends on the point of view. . . .
Wait! Give me a trinket –
to pledge that you will come back.
That necklace –

Luisa: Was my mother’s.

El Gallo: Good. It will serve as your pledge.

(He holds out his hand. She considers, then
removes necklace and places it gently in his hand.)

Luisa:
All right. I leave you this necklace
because it is my favorite thing.
Here, guard it. I won’t be long. . . .

*****

Lyrics by Tom Jones (b. 1928)
Music by Harvey Schmidt (1929 - 2018)
Sung by Jerry Orbach (1935 - 2005;
the original El Gallo, from 1959 - 61,
at the Sullivan Street Playhouse)

*********************

A few more jewel - themed stories to contemplate:
Master of the short story, Guy de Maupassant (1850 - 1893) experimented with both scenarios: fake jewels believed to be real and real jewels believed to be fake. I won't say which story is which; you have to read them both:

The Diamond Necklace & The Jewelry

and this one
by Henry James (1843 - 1916): Paste

James doubles up on both the irony and the betrayal in his intrigue of a mysterious family jewel box, filled with a combination of treasures and trinkets that, unlike diamonds, may or may not be forever. In his story, it is a string of pearls that deceive and delight. Are they dull or lustrous? Paste or genuine? Fancy or pride?

Next Fortnightly Post ~ More jewels to come!
Wednesday, June 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Heirloom Jewelry

TURQUOISE, EMERALD, JADE
ACCUSTOMED, CERMONIOUS

The Little Treasure Chest
Władysław Czachórski (1850 – 1911)
Polish artist and master of rendering luxury fabrics and jewelry

A CONTINUATION OF LAST TIME'S THEME:
MORE PRECIOUS JEWELS . . .

Jewels in my Hand

I hold dead friends like jewels in my hand
Watching their brilliance gleam against my palm
Turquoise and emerald, jade, a golden band

All ravages of time they can withstand
Like talismans their grace keeps me from harm
I hold dead friends like jewels in my hand

I see them standing in some borderland
Their heads half-turned, waiting for my arm
Turquoise and emerald, jade, a golden band

I'm not afraid they will misunderstand
My turning to them like a magic charm
I hold dead friends like jewels in my hand
Turquoise and emerald, jade, a golden band

By Sasha Moorsom (1931-1993)
Written shortly before she died of cancer

Lady With Jewels (1890) ~ Władysław Czachórski
[The green jewelry box appears in all three paintings: here, above, and below]

Post-War
In France there was some heirloom jewellery,
Smuggled and hidden in the Nazi years,
Now found again and mostly ownerless.
It crouched inside my palm as family

Survivor. I recognised the bracelet
And the ring, Victorian brooches set in
Filigree with weeping rubies. Secret
Histories escaping in a tin

From gas and ash, divorced from neck and arm,
The warmth that cradled them in Kaiser's time
Or later in the 20s decadence.
Now, in this island's twilight, life or chance

On certain days will bring these items out
To give them air, to mourn, to celebrate.

Lotte Kramer (b 1923)
Written in recollection of her parents, lost in the Holocaust

The Letter (1896) ~ Władysław Czachórski

Next Fortnightly Post ~ More jewels to come!
Wednesday, June 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor

JEWEL RAINBOW SPLENDOR
ACCUSTOMED, CERMONIOUS

Remember this beloved quotation from Joan Baez? Back in high school, I had a small poster that looked almost like this, hanging on my bedroom wall. Despite my archival tendencies, I somehow or other have failed to retain my old paper copy. However, I was successful in using the internet to track down the above version that nearly resembles mine from the 1970s.

I also came across this rendition and could not help wondering why it is attributed to Corita Kent — when we know the words are by Joan Baez? Well, it’s because Corita Kent was the amazing artist / nun who made the silk screen of the Joan Baez lyrics . . .

. . . and the 1985 USPS Love Stamp:

I also loved these Joni Mitchell lyrics,
but never had the poster:

"And the sun poured in like butterscotch
and stuck to all my senses
Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses . . . "

I discovered this gorgeous unique
jewel of Nature in my own front yard!

I can never think of jewels, precious jewels, without recalling this soulful old hymn that my grandmother used to sing. It seemed like a children's song to me at the time, and I can still hear it, ever so faintly as a lullaby:

Precious Jewels
Sung by Alison Krauss

When He cometh, when He cometh
To take up his jewels
All his jewels, precious jewels
His Loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning
His bright crown adorning
hey will shine in their beauty
Bright gems for his crown.

He will gather, He will gather
The gems for His kingdom
All the pure ones, all the bright ones
His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning
His bright crown adorning
They will shine in their beauty
Bright gems for his crown.

Little children, little children
O love their Redeemer
All the jewels, precious jewels
His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning
His bright crown adorning
They will shine in their beauty
Bright gems for his crown

Words by William O. Cushing (1823–1902)
Music by George F. Root (1820–1895)

And, in closing, this beautiful verse:

My Love

Although I conquer all the earth
Yet for me there is only one city.
In that city there is for me only one house;
And in that house, one room only;
And in that room a bed.
And one woman sleeps there,
The shining joy and jewel of all my kingdom.*

from Subhashitavali p.21
compiled Vallabhadeva 10th C
translated from Sanskrit by John Brough

above: Asian Art Museum in San Francisco
below: International Art Museum of America, SF

Many thanks to my friend Eve for
sending this connection back in 1987:

Of the Kingdom
by John Ciardi

If you will let people be wrong,
most of whatever lov is
may begin. Justice will hang
all of us yet. Waft mercies
the guilty may walk on whn
trugh grows absolut. The trees
from which we shall dangle then
are everywhere. And since
not all trees can be cut,
all men ma hang. But once
let love in, mercy out, ah, then
a bird song may defend us,
a mote -- can you dream it? -- heal!

Next Fortnightly Post ~ More jewels to come!
Sunday, May 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Time Does Not Assuage

THE BUDDING MOON
ACCUSTOMED, CERMONIOUS

"Well, I'll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that's not unusual
It's just that the moon is full . . ."
Joan Baez

Reading Duo Dickinson's Lenten Meditations is good way to discover poems by Emily Dickinson that you may have never before encountered. For the past few springs, it has been Duo's Lenten discipline to feature 40 of Emily's poems in 40 days. That's how I came across this one -- Emily's elegant response to the ancient idiom "Time heals all wounds":

They say that ‘time assuages,’–
Time never did assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do, with age.

Time is a test of trouble,
But not a remedy.
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no malady.

Emily Dickinson

You might not think of Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), as contemporaries, but in fact their lives overlapped by 42 years. In 1888, Nietzsche wrote: "What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger," an aphorism that stands in interesting contrast to the second line of Dickinson's poem: "An acutual suffering strengthens." Unlike Nietzsche, Dickinson does not say that suffering provides a source of personal growth. Rather, she implies that suffering strengthens itself -- not that it lends any fortitude to the sufferer. Instead, the actual wound itself grows stronger as time passes.

As I observed awhile back on my book blog, perhaps various hurtful incidents actually feel not less but more egregious as you gain the clarity to look back and realize that circumstances were actually way worse than you were able to acknowledge at the time because your emotional survival depended on pushing the reality out of your mind and rationalizing that all was well.

If "it prove" that an ache or pain should dissipate, has it has been healed by Time? No, says Dickinson, it just wasn't all that bad in the first place. On the other hand, if the wound was profound, it is with you for life. Time is not a remedy; time does not assuage.

Writing over a century later, Anne Lamott (b 1954) concurs with Dickinson. Rather than alleviating old unresolved wrongs, Time brings a sharper focus. I appreciate Dickinson's generalities: suffering, trouble, malady; and Lamott's specifics: moving her mother's ashes from the back of the closet and going as "deeply, as I could into the mystery of our relationship":

"I've been angry at her most of my life, even after she died. I put the ashes in the closet as soon as they came back from the funeral home, two years ago, thinking I could finally give up all hope that a wafting white-robed figure would rise up from the ashes and say, 'Oh, Little One, my darling daughter, I am here now, finally.' I prayed and prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me -- life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, like the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise a girl, and my heart remained hardened towards her. . . . she was like someone who had broken my leg, and my leg had healed badly, and I would limp forever.

"I couldn't pretend she hadn't done extensive damage -- that's called denial. But I wanted to dance anyway, even with a limp. I know forgiveness is a component of freedom, but I couldn't, even after she died, grant her amnesty. Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean you want to be with the person again; but if you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare . . . My life has actually been much better since she died, and it was liberating to be so angry, after having been such a good and loyal girl. But 18 months after her death, I still thought of her . . . with bewilderment that this person could ever be in charge, and dismay, and something like hatred."

from Lamott's essay O Noraht, Noraht
[See also: Mother's Day]

Just as Lamott is able to claim hatred as one of her residual emotions after her mother's death, poet W. S. Merwin, looking back on his childhood, admits: "I did not know at the time that the names for much of my feeling about [my father] were really dread and anger” (emphasis added). Children, having neither the vocabulary nor the autonomy, don't know these things until later.

If only we could skip all the bewildering memories and have just the good ones. Sometimes I play a game inside my head, going through the years and picking out a series of happy highlights: a fun picnic, a special holiday, a surprise present, and so forth. I think to myself, what if I focused only on these things and let myself forget all the rest? Sadly though, that starts to feel unbearably artificial -- Lamott has already named it: "that's called denial." More truthfully, all the negative counterparts are hovering at the edge of my memory, awaiting validation. Does Time assuage? No it doesn't.

A Few More Connections
1. Additional Emily Dickinson poems
featured in essays by Duo Dickinson

A beautiful poem about both carpentry & parenting:

The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Augur and the Carpenter –
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life –
A Past of Plank and Nail
And slowness – then the scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul –

Facing reality:
The Things that never can come back, are several —
Childhood — some forms of Hope — the Dead . . . ~ on facebook

Honoring the child:
Caught Between Two Worlds ~ on facebook

"Every parent comes to know that you have nothing to do with the beauty of your children and every responsibility not to betray it."

2. Ursula Nordstrom: “I am a former child, and I haven't forgotten a thing.”

3. Francine Tolf offers a forgive and forget [or better yet, remember and forgive] scenario, in the poem "Across Time and Death." Recalling a long ago evening of patience and tenderness, she writes:

"Let me dwell on this scene when I am tempted to finger
some distant hurt they caused, for even in middle age,
pain fom childhood thrives greedily if given nourishment.
Let me cradle the seed of this long - ago night to remember
the goodness of these two people, and to tell them out loud
across time and death and the imperfect understanding
that stains every human relationship:
I thank you, I honor you, I love you."

4. Nadia Bolz-Weber: "Perseverating negatively about the past, especially in terms of our resentments about what other people did to us, keeps us stuck in a maze. And being in that maze keeps us from moving forward. And it is difficult to leave the maze because our ego demands fairness. And since it is the PAST, usually there is no real resolution to be had. There is no adjudicatory process available to us . . . ." [previously on FN & QK]

5. Life can feel so unfair but is, in fact, so neutral:
Thomas Hardy's poem, "Going and Staying"

6. Another example of adults foisting weirdly interpreted religion onto kids; but thank goodness they don't always fall for it:

Actor ~ Steven Yeun's recent discussion of his religious upbringing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert:

" 'I do have a favorite verse,' he said. 'I was taught this in sixth grade. It’s Romans 12:2: "Do not conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you’ll be able to test God’s good and perfect will." '

"Yeun then explained his confusion on leaders who interpreted that to mean 'Don’t do secular things, just do Christian things.'

" 'I was like, "That’s doesn’t seem at all like what the verse said," he said. 'And I’ve been unpacking it ever since.' "

Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, May 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Everything Connects

ACCUSTOMED, CERMONIOUS, GENIUS
LEONARDO DA VINCI
~ 15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519 ~

*********************

A few centuries later, British novelist
E. M. Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970)
echoed Da Vinci's sentiment, creating the phrase
that has become the mantra for my reading & writing:
"Live in fragments no longer. Only connect!"

Many times over, I have invoked this iconic phrase
from Forster's novel Howards End (published 1910):
Mission Statement, Commonplace Book, King & Queen,
Handful of Dust, RedBear, Continued Connections, Uroboros

A brief post in honor of the
incomparble Leonardo Da Vinci,
whose astounding life began 571 years ago today!

Leonardo Da Vinci Inventor
Liebig ~ Trading Card Set
[Dual connection: Forster post ~ Da Vinci Card]

Let us also join with Leonardo
in celebration of the
continuing Season of Easter!

Lily, c.1473 - c.1475

~ two renderings ~

Drawing of lilies, for an Annunciation, c.1500
[see also]

On Facebook

Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, April 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com