Good morning Smile
Warriors!
It is Wednesday, Oct
2, 2013 and so far the world has not ended. The day is young!
Go forth and SMILE!
They are really going to wonder what you have been up to. Remember,
it's hump day and the weekend is in sight. Your 5 day work week, for
those of you who still have that, was brought to you by a Union and
people who died, yes died, to organize so their numbers could defeat
a monied stranglehold on their lives.
This morning I was
looking for a pair of gold earring as my ear lobs are still sore and
gold really is the best metal. I react to steel, even the surgical
variety. I could go buy a pair. I have enough left in the budget as
Yule is coming up and it is just the two of us but I knew I must have
a pair somewhere and I am Scottish or cheap depending on how you view
us.
Finally at the
bottom of a jewelry box full of good jewelry I might as well sell at
my age, I found a pair of REAL cameo 18k gold earrings. Every piece
has a memory that is a chunk of your life. That's why it is so hard
for those my age to part with the STUFF they have accumulated. This
STUFF is like a rosary. Touch a piece of it and a part of your life
plays out in your mind.
I had just turned 16
which was a big thing. I could date. I could stay up past Here's
Johnny though I never liked the man. But most important of all the
concessions to growing up was that I could get my ears pierced. I
know today most kids have multiple holes in their bodies and a few
tattoos by sixteen but in my world and that age, it was a big thing.
You see, only Catholic girls and Latino girls, which were usually one
in the same thing, pierced their ears. The rest of us were stuck with
painful clip on earring or the way more expensive screw backs. The
year was 1967 and the hoop was all the rage. Yes I was the perfect
age in the perfect era and a nerd. So after much arguing between the
parental units, I was taken to the doctor.
Every woman in that
generation will tell you one thing and one story. Never let a doctor
pierce your ears and if you do, one hole will always be higher than
the other one. I was no exception and I was about to discover I may
have inherited my father's perfect ears but I inherited my mother's
ear lobs and that was going to bring me a world of hurt. The doctor
had insisted on a pair of gold earrings and my father had bought me a
small little gold dot, the smaller the better in his world. My ear
was numbed with an ice cube which means it wasn't and a he used a
long hypodermic needle to do the job. I bled like a stuck pig, the
pain was excruciating and I almost passed out. That was only the
first ear and I was warned if I passed out, I was only getting one
ear done. The doctor didn't want to pierce my ears. I left with pain
and both ears pierced and scant instructions.
By day two, the
ears were bright red and in a moment of self preservation, I scuttled
across the street to the Catholic mom with two little girls with
pierced ears. She agreed to take care of my ears as she had been a
practical nurse before quitting to take care of her brood. I quickly
learned the doctor's instructions were all wrong. We spent almost a
week cleaning, disinfecting and putting antibiotic cream on my ears,
taking the earrings out and putting them back in with me laying on
the couch in case I passed out, when finally she called my mother
over and delivered the news. My ear lobs were so thick, the earrings
were pinching them and that was causing them to not heal. I needed a
pair of earring with longer posts.
Daddy was not
happy, but he gathered me up in the old station wagon with the wood
panels on the outside. Yes, they used real wood on station wagons and
they made SUV's look like tiny boats. Off we went to Mayor's Jewelry
Store. Forget the one on TV with the J. If you could afford to walk
into Mayor's you were either rich or having a live changing moment.
Years later, my engagement ring would come from Mayor's. The man
carefully checked every pair of earrings in the store. No one asked
if they were real gold or not because Mayor's carried nothing else.
Nope, not a smidgen of silver contaminated their store back then.
Finally, he found one pair of earrings with longer posts than all the
others because they were made in Italy and were genuine cameos.
Forget your pearls. Forget your diamonds. I was in love. My father
determined we would have to come back in a couple of days when he got
paid. Actually, he was estimating what he was going to have to sell
to buy these earrings and whatever it was, the next afternoon I had
the earrings in a tiny box. The woman put them in my ears after a
mind numbing disinfecting of my bright red lobs. A week later, my
ears were healed but the earrings remained in my ears for six months
before I was allowed to try cheap metal. I never really had another
problem until this week.
So here I sit, my
ear recovering from an infection wearing the same earrings to keep
the raw parts clean and healing. The Universe is circular. All things
return to the starting point. Unbidden the thought comes to mind;
ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It is a line from Christian funerals
but it makes no sense.
It never occurred to
me it makes no sense until this moment. Their Bible says Adam was
made from mud, not ashes or dust. Shouldn't it be mud to mud? I mean,
cremation was against their views so where did the ashes come from
and as to dust...well, they probably looked under my bed for that
one. But we are made of the ashes of dead stars and dust of the
cosmos! To know that, you had to have scientific knowledge that did
not include the god of Abraham; a knowledge much, much older than any
god....makes you wonder......Did our very old ancestors that came
before any of this nonsense was created to enslave us with guilt and
punishment sneak a few truths into places no one would bother to
look, like a funeral rite?
Well, your job is to
insert a smile, a laugh and some good will into the world today. So
take heart, you have the easier job. Although it only takes a moment,
it will be engraved on someone's heart for years to come as every
time they touch that piece of STUFF, they will remember the stranger
who made them feel special in a world gone mean.
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