I’ve been carrying around a couple piece of jewelry for the past few weeks. When I cleaned out my backpack before heading out to the beach for the week, I stumbled across them, and put them in a safe place. My intent was to take them to the jeweler to be repaired. I still haven’t done that.
Funny how hard it is to recognize classic writing exercises when they are staring you in the face. (Or you are holding them in your hand.) It’s an old saw. Find an object and write a story about it. The fact is, though, these two objects have been rolling around in my mind for three weeks. Maybe my amendment to the exercise is to find an object, carry it around for three weeks, and THEN write about it.
Both the objects are rings. One belonged to my father, one belongs to my wife. Both are shrouded in stories.
My dad wore an azure-blue star sapphire, set in a manly silver setting with two diamond chips on both sides. I don’t know why my mother bought a ring like this. Nor why she gave it to my dad, but I do remember he loved it, and that was rare. My dad took delight in many things, but seldom cherished anything.
Sapphires themselves are kind of native to Montana. During one of our few family outings, the four of us went to a sapphire mine and picked over a bucket of stones. My mom threw a chunk of what she was convince was Coke-bottle glass over her shoulder and we spent a good part of the afternoon sorting through road gravel to find it. Turns out, it was a blue-green hunk of corundum, which my sister now wears as a cut stone in a setting my mom chose. Given their relationship, I’m pretty sure that ring irritates my sister from time to time.
We didn’t find my dad’s stone. Maybe my mom gave the ring to my dad one Father’s Day. She might have said something hokey about the diamond chips representing my sister and me. I really don’t remember how, or why, that ring came into the family. I do remember how the depth of the blue jumped off my dad’s chubby fingers. And the milky-gray, sparkley star inside the stone mimicked my dad’s eyes.
In doing a little research, I’ve found that real star sapphires are rare. They are most likely blue. They are cut in a way that a six-pointed star appears to be inside the stone, and that star shape will move, but continue to show up, no matter how you hold the stone. Star sapphires are also frequently replicated or faked. There are many stones in the world with the star “painted” into a less-valuable material, like agate. One of the tests for authenticity is to make sure the image of the star remains, no matter how you move the stone. But clever counterfeiters can create synthetic material that mimics the star and sell it as real. So taking the stone to a gemologist is the only way to tell.
I came across the ring when we were culling through my mom’s stuff in preparation for my eldest sister Cherie’s move into the house I grew up in. I remember that day as being busy, and filled with strongly concealed emotions. My sisters were mostly concerned with my mother’s shoes. I sat on the living room floor with my week-old neice strapped into a car seat nearby. She had recently discovered her feet, and she squealed with delight every time she managed to snatch one up and pull it to her chest. My dad’s stuff was down to a few boxes. This was stuff my mom had saved, having parceled out the rest the year before. It contained my dad’s dog tags from WWII, his discharge papers, his wedding ring, a photo of his high-school track team, a copy of the speech he gave at his graduation, and a few other things my mom couldn’t bear to part with.
I’d never wear the ring on a daily basis. I’d probably never wear it even for special occasions. I did wear it recently in a play. (I had to wrap the band with tape … my dad had huge fingers.) Not an everyday ring, but something the King of France would wear.
The stone is loose.
And I have been reluctant to take it to the jeweler for more than a handful of reasons. Practically, I don’t have any reason to wear the ring, so why pay to get it fixed? And I don’t have anyone to give the ring to, once I’m dead, or ready to give my stuff away. Emotionally, I don’t want to know if the stone is fake.
Mostly, I don’t want to let the color of the star out of my possession.
Even to get fixed.