Priceless

It's funny for me when I recall my strongest interest as a pre-teen/teen: jewelry. Indelible memories of objects linked to a specific time, place, and loved one including purchasing jewels from Wyona, a charm bracelet gifted to me by my mom, delicate sterling silver chains with delicate pendants purchased with my mom by my side, and that mood ring Trell and I put our money together to buy and we co-owned.

I graduated to big bold pieces when we all started having access to Lan's jewelry at a discounted rate or Suzanne Truba's gently used jewelry.

It's funny for me to recall that strong interest, because now I rarely wear jewelry. 

I wear my seal skin bracelet when I want comfort.  It is warm on my wrist and gives me a feeling of calm strength.

I think of my sister educating me about Inuit history, commerce, rights, and power. I think of Rebecca's strength, courage, and love.

When I want to have a back-up tool for work, I wear what looks like a candy  necklace.

My friend Ellen made it and left it for me at my office. It was a time in our friendship when our paths rarely crossed, so I didn't get to share my delight in receiving it with her face-to-face upon first sight. When I put it on, I take her with me, her energy, her compassion, her favourite children's literature, her zany moments of breaking out into song, or use of a drama students technique for closing a conversation with a flourish of her arm paired with the words, "and scene."

It has letters, shapes, colours, animals, stars - all good conversation starters when meeting a new little one. It's an ideal church fidget toy for a preschooler, or for a mid-career speech-language pathologist who loves her job.

I have a recent gift of earrings that Rebecca purchased for me at the 2018 Secwépemc Winter Gathering. 

The artist who made them told me he was trying to preserve in the earrings the natural beauty of the birch bark. For me they also capture the feeling of the Secwépemc welcome song, the deep drum beat, the movement, the love and generosity of the people who have lived her since time immemorial. When I wear them I feel strong, protected.

"I was not born in BC, but I got here as quickly as I could" goes the line I read on a postcard as a teen, and I sometimes use when people ask if I am originally from here. Because, as I may have written about before, I sent down my individual roots deep into "the lake" as a child and it is here in the Shuswap where I am choose to raise my son.

Birch bark. My earliest memory of birch bark is looking at it on a tree while out on a walk with "the aunts" and "my cousins" as a child, hearing my mother explain that the indigenous peoples used it to write on, like we now use paper, and that if I was lucky I might get a piece someday and I could write a letter on it to someone special.

I have carried with me birch bark that I was given permission to take from the trees felled on Wyona's property when she and her family first cleared their lot. I wish I could recall what year that was. I feel like I carried that piece of the traditional, unceded, ancestral territory of the Secwépemc people through my time in the U.S., it moving with me from Kansas, to Illinois, to Florida, and it has made its way back with me to the Shuswap. It is tucked between the clear pocket on the front of one of David's baby books.

An original piece designed by Wyona. If you see a similar
one on my cousin's neck or wrist, know I got the best one.
(the best one for me)

Speaking of Wyona, here is  photo of one of two bracelet I commissioned her to make for me. That word makes it sound more formal than it was, but I want to honour what an amazing designer she is. The story goes, she had made a necklace for one of her daughters while in London. I asked if I could try it on. I did. Then I didn't want to take it off. 

The fresh water pearls stayed cool on my neck. I liked the weight of them on my collar bone. The necklace could be transformed into two bracelets. I felt a knot in my stomach that I think of as indicator of one of the seven sins - the "covet" discomfort. When I said I *need* to keep it, she laughed and said, give me the money to cover the cost of the materials and I will make you one when I go back to London. And she did.

Ernie Smith's initials. The front is a
carving of an Eagle.

When I wear them I take with me for the day gifts from Wyona in the form of feeling bold, confident, and able to gracefully set boundaries or open doors with simply my posture or a facial expression. I haven't quite captured it with those words, so I will try with an anecdote. 

In China, we stopped on a shore, strangers to the land, intruders on what began to feel like an unlicensed tour. A group of older women were playing Mah Jong, their facial expressions and body posture saying to us "move along." Wyona, in an exaggerated way meant to get their attention while appearing to not want them to see her, tip toed up to their table, slowly reached her hand between two of them, and paused in a position that looked like she was going to try and steal some of the winnings. The women burst into laughter, as did she, and before I knew it they were posing with Arta, Moiya and Wyona for a picture along the river. Never have I met another person like Wyona, a person who can navigate countries and cultures without language, letting riff-raff know she is someone to be reckoned with and inviting others into her interesting world that includes connection and humour. Can I channel her? No. But wearing jewellery she designed gives me confidence to try.

I shall have to save my story of Ernie Smith's art for another post. When I wear it, I carry with me the story he and his wife shared with me about parenting a teen.