Yarn

When I was a little girl I remember sitting next to my grandmother while she talked with the adults, content to study her bracelet, mesmerized by the number of different charms affixed and the gentle jingle of the metal each time she moved her arm. If I was lucky enough to find a break in the conversation, quite a feat in my loquacious family, I was rewarded with the story behind a particular charm.  

A history of where a woman takes herself in life; these bracelets are also tradition.  My mother had her own, likely started after admiring the one her mother-in-law wore on her wrist.  And on my 11^th birthday, I received a delicate chain with one charm:  A shiny, silver disk bearing my name in block letters and the date 11-16-75.

Over the years I would collect charms, mostly from the vacations we took:  Minnie Mouse from Walt Disney World, a fish from the Lake of the Ozarks, the Amana Colonies, Mark Twain’s boyhood home and the St. Louis Arch. I liked the idea of building my own bracelet, much like the women in my family before me. 

In my twenties, though, my interest waned.  I was too busy being hip and fashionable for such old school jewelry I guess.  It wasn’t until after my mother died and we were going through her things that I resurrected the idea.  One of the treasures in her jewelry box was her mother’s bracelet.  Sparsely endowed, it held only the engraved charms of her five grandchildren.  My mother must have given her this piece and each subsequent charm as the babies were born, in hopes that she’d round it out herself.  It doesn’t surprise me that it never grew.  Charm bracelets just didn’t seem like my maternal grandmother’s style.  But this was the bracelet I needed to have.  Even more meaningful than my mother’s own that, of course, my father held on to, this one would become the base for my exclusive creation, hand-selected by my mother, a piece I’m sure she truly loved.

I removed the charms bearing my siblings’ names and made sure they received them.  And then I started assembling my own bracelet, anchored around the inaugural charm that likely adorned the chain when my mother presented this gift to her mother sometime in the late sixties.  Charms representing my marriage, my own babies, trips to the beach, hobbies like photography, gardening, and of course my beloved Volkswagen Beetle added to the sturdy chain.

My bracelet sat idle for another long period of time, until one of the stops on my recent trip to Boston; a jewelry store loaded with charms. I found a mermaid that I just had to have, perfect for a bracelet, the shopkeeper observed, inspiring me to pull mine out once again.  It was in need of serious maintenance, tarnishing in the drawer alongside a backlog of charms purchased with good intentions to add when I got around to it. 

After watching a how-to You Tube video, I went out and purchased a soldering iron, solder, flux and got to work.  In addition to securing memorabilia from my trips to the mountains, the desert, a cruise, I added the charms from my childhood bracelet. I will hold on to my first bracelet, perfect in its daintiness, to pass on along with one special starter charm to a little girl in my future, just as my mother did for me.

Picking up my son from a friend’s house, I couldn’t wait to show off my work of art.  Honestly, I was expecting nothing more than a vague nod of acknowledgement, something along the lines of “That’s nice, Mom”.  I was caught off guard when he requested that I remove it from my wrist so he could look more closely without distracting me while I drove.  And then he asked for the tale behind each and every charm!   As I happily recounted the stories, I couldn’t help but smile at the power the charms possess, casting a spell of enchantment on yet another generation.

I’m thrilled with this one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry so steeped in tradition.  And I like the fact that it will always be a work in progress, just like life itself, a place to mark the milestones as I take myself wherever I want to go. There are all sorts of ways to tell a life story, but I can think of few that are as intensely personal as a woman’s charm bracelet.  She can literally wear her heart on her sleeve.