Distant but Still Present

 

Before my decades-long marriage came the early years of impermanence.

Divorce, and so reshuffling from two parents to one in another state, and back to the first in the part of the country where I began. Changing up houses and schools, leaving behind friends and pets, all so far away they might as well have dropped off the planet, whole chunks of my life gone forever.

A complement on my earrings yesterday set me thinking about all this.

A life of retirement doesn’t necessitate much in the way of jewelry. Even if I felt like putting on a necklace for a festive trip to the grocery store, it usually annoys me by the end of the day and is soon gone.

I do usually put on earrings. (And by the way did you, like me, even let that slide during the Covid days of shlepping around the house and then start to worry that your pierced ears might grow back together?)

So, my friend Ann commented yesterday on my earrings. I don’t wear them much anymore – to where?? – but they’re favorites even if they are dangly and a little fancy for taking out the trash. That day I’d put them on for me, thinking what’s the point of owning them if I never wear them.

And then while watching TV last night I got to thinking about the day I’d had my ears pierced. I was in college, a couple of decades before anyone had even thought about the coming of Y2K.

A girl someone knew came over through the adjoining door from her dorm to our building. I’m not sure I even knew her name. I sat on the bed in my next-door neighbor Ellen’s room with an ice cube held to each ear. A needle through my ear, small gold studs inserted, and that was that.

And here I am, 50+ years later, with the same piercings.

Few people have left such a lasting imprint on my life, and she was a stranger.