Thursday, March 02, 2006

Relics

I've been involved in a school assignment that has taken me further than any school assignment has taken me in the past. This is one reason I haven't been writing in this blog lately - because I've been writing so much for school that I am beyond spent.

One of the many aspects of the assignment is to find family relics. Just now, changing from school clothes to sleeping clothes (yes, I WILL sleep tonight, as I have not done for three or so days), I realized that I do not have to look any further than my own body for the most important relics. The jewelery that I wear are my relics. Yes, sometimes I put on costume jewelery or additional jewelery to emphasize an outfit or something, but relics of my family history are permanently around my neck and on my hands. They all mean a great deal to me.

I wear four rings and two necklaces. On my left hand is a ring given to me by my oldest aunt, who followed her dream to be the intelligent, self-sufficient woman she is, skilled in computers, leaving our family's origins in the Bronx to go to California when the technology industry was just beginning. So when I look at the middle finger of my left hand, I what I see is her strength in moving across the country in the ring she purchased on her first independent trip to Mexico. On my right hand, on my ring finger, I wear a ring from my grandmother, who has a January birthday, with five garnets (the stone of January) to symbolize her five children, giving back to her. On the middle finger of my right hand, I wear two rings. The one on top is a small braided band that I bought for the equivalent of two American dollars when I went on my own personal adventure to Mali, West Africa, and lived there for six months, and was given the band by my family there. I wear it to protect something else - the ring that lies beneath it on the same finger. This ring was carved by my grandfather when he was in World War II and, an artist at heart, a musician specifically, who used his time to carve a ring from silver New Guinean coins in the form of eight interconnected hearts. This ring may be my most treasured possession.

On my neck I wear a necklace, longer and given to me by my mother, that says "LM." The L stands for my first name; the M for my great-grandmother who emigrated here from Italy by herself in the middle of the night and was so strong and beautiful that I am honored to have her name as my middle name. And the other necklace I wear is from my ex-boyfriend, and I have no idea why I still wear it all the time, but I can't figure out everything right now.

Those are my personal, physical relics. I don't have to search for them anywhere, because I see them on my fingers any time I am typing; I see them around my neck any time I look in the mirror.

I hope this makes sense, because I haven't slept in three days and I am probably blabbering on and on and... god bless my family. Whichever god or power anyone believes in, whichever god or higher power I believe in, there is something that I believe is more than we are as physical figures on this earth. And I embrace those symbols that represent the emotions that were a part of every single piece of jewelery that I wear, forever connected to my body, forever a part of me.

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