While imprisoned in glasses, I wore only small studs, and in the years since have worn only a few pairs of earrings regularly--my goddess ones, mostly, a pair of male and female stick figures, and a pair of plain silver drops. Lately I've been rediscovering my collection, some of which is too tarnished to wear. Two pair of earrings from Thailand that SEM gave me after successive trips. A pair of twisted silver wires from the Benton Art Museum. Venus-symbol earrings (♀). Two ornaments meant as pendants, a representation of Gemini intended for PLT that he, unsurprisingly, would never wear (it was probably a selfish present), and large amethyst from HEBD.
Seeing "Mountains of the Moon" in my Bad Year, I was struck by Mabruki's wearing ears as earrings so that he could hear the spirits. Everyone was gone that year--DEDBG in France, SEM in Japan, TJZD in Russia, HEBD estranged, PLT blessedly only in Boston, no farther than my sister--so I opted to, since I could not hear them, hear their gifts. One pair of SEM's earrings are Thai coins with danglers that whisper on their own, and chattered more when I wore the two pendants in my second holes. I wore those four, plus my Tigger pendant, all the time, as constantly and unchangeably as my rings and bracelets.
I set the pendants aside for polishing only because they were tarnished, with no plans to wear them again (I have no idea why my earlobes didn't rip apart at the time). But diving and frolicking with Lucky Star, another Gemini with that birthday (though scads of years younger), and then actually polishing them the next day, made me reconsider. I strung the Gemini on a necklace (which officially belongs to another pendant with continued emotional significance but declining aesthetic appeal) and am wearing it today. It belongs with HEBD's amethyst but the latter's bale is too small for the available chain.
I'm wearing something I wanted to give to a lover 15 years ago, something representing astrology to boot. It's not the usual Gemini symbol that resembles "II" but two human figures running side by side carrying a tree or torch before them, so (to me) it doesn't represent faith in a snake oil belief but friendship. Plus, it's still pretty, just like the SEM earrings I'm also wearing.
I had to go to Seattle to find a chain for the tanzanite pendant RDC gave me. The one thing I cannot find in this town is my kind of jewelry: where do I go to get a box chain that will fit through the amethyst's bale?