My grandmother's bracelet

[juushika]

Back around around Hanukkah time—I'm so late to write any sort of journal post—my parents and I went through my paternal grandmother's collection of jewelry. My grandparents used to make regular visits to New Mexico, so she wore a lot of turquoise; she liked big bulky statement pieces, chunky rings and earrings, dyed coral, brass and gold. But she didn't have a signature piece, something worth keeping for pure nostalgia. She just had ... a collection.

I've never been in the habit wearing of jewelry, but whatever my personal tastes are, they're nothing like that. But I managed to find two pieces which were smaller, less chunky, in neutral metals. One of them is a copper chain-link bracelet that doesn't particularly fit her statement-piece style, but came to me missing links and with some small dents, so it had obviously been worn.



So I started wearing it too. Every day, literally all day. It was weird to adjust to the feel of it, especially in the dead of winter—my wrist always felt cold. But now I wear it all the time except when I shower; I even sleep with it on. There's redundancy in the dash-shaped links, which is why it was still wearable when I got it, and a good thing too, because I've lost another link. At some point, I know it'll stop being wearable, it will literally break, but I'm okay with that. These aren't treasures, really; they're personal relics, and this one's serving its purpose.

I wanted something to connect me to my Jewish family, and ancestry, and dead grandmother; to ground me in and validate that while the world outside endangered it. And this has done that. (I'm still not being the Jew I want to be—in many ways, fuck knows—and there are still no outside answers to cling to. But there is this one physical thing to literally be attached to, to use as talisman and a private sort of proof and comfort; and that in itself is valuable, and it's a step forward just to disentangle from some of the anxiety.) I'm not sure what I'll do when it breaks—my wrist will feel so bare—but on some level it will feel like an external sign that I achieved that goal of engagement and remembrance, and can shift my focus elsewhere.