H-Bird’s World of Things 2

Plighted Troth

Does not shoot laser beams or hypnotise the viewer

This is my engagement ring, on my finger.  It was designed and made by Deanna Gracie, a jewellery designer and exhibitor whose blog you can read here.  Wearing it is giving me a lot of pleasure; you may even find me striking those kind of fingertips-on-face poses typically seen on knitting patterns from a bygone era.

I wanted, and did not want, a ring, often at the same time.  The heritage of chattelhood at which first-wave feminism chipped away (sometimes with a very large chisel) is in an engagement ring, as is its contemporary echo of adorned women, for whom, the canon of R&B and hip-hop-lite tells us, the receipt and wearing of jewellery is a primary goal.

At the same time, I thought of the rings and brooches my grandfather gave my grandmother, the pleasure he took in giving them and the pride with which they were worn.  (Some of this jewellery is now in my possession.)  I thought of the engagement ring my father had recast for my mother, having learned some time in the past some hard life lessons from the previous engagement that his friends and family thought would be best for him.  I thought, as you can see, of the way that jewellery accrues stories through the passing of time, and how the wearing of a ring is part of that story not just of purchase and display, but also of making a choice, maintaining that choice and being together through this.  The ring is a synecdoche but its detail is in many ways in the control of the señor and me.

Deanna’s beautiful designs grew on us, particularly the in-drawing of the local to the inherited tradition of jewellery making.  I liked particularly the eschewing in her craft of the traditional signifiers of commitment: no diamonds and only small amounts of gold (with a concomittantly sensible price).  I am content, too, with the public status my wearing the ring gives our relationship, that people stop and ask me about it, that it is a beautiful object.  It becomes part of a story of small and lovely things we have bought together,  a sort of domestic commerce that tells, I hope, a lovers’ modest tale.