Touch

Guess what I am up to?

The thing about packing to move is you are forced to actually touch, at least once, everything you own. Some items may not have been touched or thought of for years. You may have forgotten you even had such things as a pillowcase full of mismatched socks, from when your kids were little, pushed into the back of the closet. You find it and remember setting it in there "in case you found a use for them".

Mine was last pulled out the year my youngest was thirteen and the two of us brilliantly thought the tops of child sized tube socks would be the perfect size to make sweaters for the new Chihuahua puppy. Now, years later, you know I ran my fingers through those socks once more before, finally, discarding them this week. Because touch stirs memory doesn't it?

How many times have you picked something up that you brought into your home years ago and immediately begun a film strip rolling in your mind? It doesn't have to be something from a vacation you just had to have as a memento, or a priceless heirloom, it just has to have been accepted into your environment to become part of the story of your life. Those socks were past their use, yet just touching them brought back memories of my girls (now grown) as young children. I could hear their laughter as it was then, open and free like nothing else in the world.

I started thinking about my work; my jewelry, and what draws me to it as a way of expressing myself. It is touch. The making part, using my hands to create something, satisfies and calms me, but it goes beyond that. We interact with our jewelry. The way it fits, the way it feels, how it makes us feel when wearing that favorite, favorite piece. It's tactile.

Are there pieces of jewelry sitting in the back of your jewelry box that you have not thought of or touched for a while? Pull them out, put them all on! Remind yourself what drew you to the pieces to begin with. Touch them!

Have fun with it, I'm off to continue packing those boxes. If my experience with those socks is any indication, I'm in for it as I fill them.