Painted Wings and Diamond Rings
You know, dear reader, diamond rings might be well and good, but when I was writing the script for this week’s episode, I was first reminded about rather a different kind of jewellery. I had a small, choice collection of dress-up gear as a kid - a sparkly tutu skirt my mother made, decked with gold sequins, a glittery fairy wand and crown, and costume jewellery. There was a strand of plastic orange star beads, and a set of multicoloured wooden beads that, to my childish mind, smacked of Cleopatra’s finery. These paired very well, in my estimation, with the stick-on earrings someone had given me, that came by the dozens on a sheet of paper, and which did not stay on especially well. These trinkets ornamented my queenly garb (an old dressing gown) or marked me out as an all-powerful witch (a black cape) or adorned my stage outfit for those times that I was a ballerina-singer-musician-superstar. I might have gazed in awe at my mother’s real jewellery box, but the objects in it were not for playing with. So, at least to pre-school Jennifer, the plastic stuff was more valuable, because it was more useable, and because it was mine.
Later (say, around twelve) I was allowed to walk the blocks to the local convenience store or corner gas station, and buy a bag of pick-and-mix or a syrupy slushie, and I can still recall the thrill of getting a ring pop to enjoy, feet dangling from the bleachers near the baseball diamond in the school grounds nearby, full of sugar and the kinds of eager, unmitigated excitement girls have when they are twelve, before it’s been squashed out of them. Someone knew how to make a dandelion crown, and there were inevitable trades and gifts of friendship bracelets, pony bead keychains, embroidery floss hair wraps. This is the sort of jewellery that comes with summer camp and late July nights, when your skin is sticky from the heat and you’re walking home with friends, talking a hundred miles an hour and feeling a kind of certainty and boundless joy that becomes rare, endangered, sometimes extinct, in adulthood. The bracelets and crowns might not have precious gems, but they were, without question, valuable - and while they might not be as storied or famous as the Koh-i-Noor as we discovered in this week’s episode, they were heavy with meaning.
Jennifer