All that Glitters

GRADE SCHOOL SWEATER CLIP
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Cat and Mouse

On the sheep-cropped summit, under hot sun,
The mouse crouched, staring out the chance
It dared not take.

Time and a world Too old to alter, the five mile prospect—
Woods, villages, farms hummed its heat-heavy
Stupor of life. Whether to two Feet or four, how are prayers contracted!
Whether in God’s eye or the eye of a cat.

Ted Hughes

I no longer have my 1965 vintage cat and mouse sweater chain. But I remember it well and was able to track down a few photos on the internet. I must have worn it to school every day in 2nd grade, until the mouse's tail snapped in two. Even after that, I saved at the bottom of my trinket box for a long time, along with my broken Snow White Watch (3rd grade).

These two poems -- above by Ted Hughes, below by William Blake
-- align perfectly with the drama of the sweater guard. Look! There is the glittering "eye of a cat," pursuing the anxious mouse. And there is the "end of a golden string," enticing the cat in its perpetual conflict with the universe.

I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.

William Blake

Poetic connections to gold abound;
here are a few glittering examples:

Robert Frost:
"nothing gold can stay"

Barbara Kunz Loots:
"watch the gold illusion drift away"

Joseph Parry:
"Make new friends,
but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold."

Johnny Marks:
"Silver and gold . . .
How do you measure its worth?
Just by the pleasure
It gives here on Earth."

Shakespeare:
"all that
glisters / glistens / glitters
is not gold"

Spandau Ballet:
"Gold!
Always believe in your soul
You've got the power to know
You're indestructible
Always believe in, 'cause you are
Gold . . ."

Yeats:
" . . . pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."

The Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Previously in this series of jewelry inspired posts:
Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor
Heirloom Jewelry
Diamond Studs Are Forever
Choose Dearests, Choose
Where is Fancy Bred
AND MORE

Also in my jewelry box:
Three Sisters' Pin & Pendant
that my sisters and I wear whenever we're together

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, October 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

Where is Fancy Bred

LIFELONG NECKLACES
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Pewter Gemini Necklace
A gift from my sister Peggy on my 19th birthday.
Once a Gemini, always a Gemini!

I've always liked the way the twins kind of
resemble two adults holding up a child --
Lion King style!

These two necklaces have been
with me for most of my life.

For my high school graduation picture,
I wore this tiny floral locket that
I had received back in first grade,
a sixth birthday present from my mother.

Some Shakespearean Connections
in continuation of jewelry box theme . . .
The Merchant of Venice, features three very important jewelry boxes, referred to as "caskets, resembling small treasure chests, and serving as a hurdle for all the suitors proposing marriage to Portia. There are three caskets, each with an appropriate inscription on the outside, and a related, illustrative token and moralistic verse inside:

"The first, of gold, who this inscription bears,
'Who chooseth me shall get what many men desire';

The second, silver, which this promise carries,
'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves';

This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt,
'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'”
(Act II, scene vii)

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

Gold ~ A Skull

"All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscrolled
Fare you well. Your suit is cold.
Cold, indeed: and labor lost:
Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost!"
(Act II, scene vii)


Silver ~ A Fool's Head

"The fire seven times tried this:
Seven times tried that judgment is,
That did never choose amiss.
Some there be that shadows kiss;
Such have but a shadow's bliss:
There be fools alive, I wis,
Silvered o'er: and so was this.
Take what wife you will to bed,
I will ever be your head.
So be gone. You are sped.
Still more fool I shall appear
By the time I linger here.
With one fool's head I came to woo,
But I go away with two."
(Act II, scene ix, 63 - 75)


Lead ~ A Portrait of Fair Portia

“You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair and choose as true.
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content and seek no new.
If you be well pleased with this
And hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn you where your lady is
And claim her with a loving kiss.”
(Act III, scene ii, 139 - 146)
The message of the caskets is clear: whatever treasures are in your jewelry box, always choose for love, never for vanity.

Before Bassanio -- Portia's favorite beau -- correctly chooses the lead casket, Portia gives him a few hints by calling on the players to perform a song whose first three lines rhyme with "lead." Silver and gold might be nice, but they are not all. Follow your heart; use your head:

"Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engender’d in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle, where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy’s knell;
I’ll begin it – Ding, dong, bell.
Ding, dong, bell."
(Act III, scene ii)

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

Another long ago favorite from my childhood jewelry box:

Next time, more on the cat & mouse sweater chain!

Previously in this series of jewelry inspired posts:
Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor
Heirloom Jewelry
Diamond Studs Are Forever
Choose Dearests, Choose
AND MORE
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, July 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

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