forget-me-not

For my birthday, my mother had the loose links to this lovely forget-me-not bracelet from WWII welded together by our trustworthy local jeweler. This piece belonged to my grandmother, and when my mother was a teenager, while perusing her mother's jewelry box, scouring for some hidden hand-me-down goodies, she came across these ornately engraved little pieces strung together on a piece of black ribbon. She asked her mom if she could keep the bracelet, fascinated by the names on each piece of metal, but apparently never further researched it or enquired about it, because she is unsure of who all the names belong to. What we do know, however, is that forget-me-not bracelets were a typical acquirement for women on the home front during the war, who had friends and lovers and family members leaving them behind to go fight overseas.

I couldn't have asked for a more thoughtful gift; the history alone is enough to keep me wearing it, yet another heirloom to wonder about. I'd like to someday find out who all the people on the links are - what sort of characters my grandmother was attempting to hold on to in the form of sterling metal linked around her wrist - something permanent and united in spite of the potential temporality of life in war.

Blossoming

Today, ah: the first glimmer of Spring and my twentieth birthday. James visited and we took a stroll around my historic hometown, and I for once let the gingerbread on porch railings and high peaked roofs fade into the background, and absorbed instead the inflorescence around me. I though of Wordsworth at Tintern Abbey, the scene a stamp on his memory:

  "...Once again
  Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,  
  That on a wild secluded scene impress
  Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
  The landscape with the quiet of the sky."                  

Do we not all love to watch flower petals cup their pollinated crux? Or notice the withered leaves, skeletal, turned to lace, thin as eggshells? And look overhead to the branches coiled like telephone lines, supporting wiry florets against the backdrop of human edifice?

Here are some of our findings from the day, photo credits mostly to my lovely James, and a few to myself. Hope everyone enjoyed the weather as much as we did. And yes, I had a lovely birthday (eh hem, I managed to hold back the tears this year...usually getting older and feeling alone makes for an all too tragic twenty-four hours.) I can't wait to share with everyone some of the wonderful goodies I've been so fortunate to receive. Updates on that in another post?

♥ Vintage Betty