In the spirit of Christmas and Solstice I wish to
share a story with you all. It is not a piece of fiction but is, in fact, very
real and very believable and it starts with a ring.
Now, this ring was not gold nor was it forged from
precious metals stolen from maidens or has it been owned by an evil king. This
was a simple piece of surgical steel engraved with what one would call “tribal
designs.” From which tribe this symbol made of curved and slicing lines
belonged to, I have no idea. I do not actually believe the design to have had
any connection to any indigenous belief systems. Think tattooed arm band from
the 90’s and you’ve just about got it.
Now my father purchased this ring in a gift shop
somewhere in the Washington peninsula. I saw it, thought it was cool (I was
sixteen at the time) and the ring being 10 dollars he bought it for me. It was
very nice of him and I was very gracious. I had never had a ring before and I
thought it was great.
Little did any of us know, this ring would be gone from
my life in less than a day.
Not twenty-four hours after the purchasing of said
ring, it had found its way to the bottom of a glacial lake. The story goes like
this.
Scene:
Family of four, white, middle-class, stops along a scenic road to view a
glacial lake.
Parents are in their mid-forties. Children are teenagers and are throwing rocks the size of bread loaves into the lake.
Parents are in their mid-forties. Children are teenagers and are throwing rocks the size of bread loaves into the lake.
Mother:
Stop throwing rocks.
Teenage
boy:
One more.
Mother:
No.
Teenage boy throws one more rock. The ring he is
wearing comes off and is lost in the lake. The water is only two feet deep
until roughly 3 meters into the lake where the elevation plummets to a depth so
far down it is terrifying to stand that close!
Thus the ring was lost to all time.
End
Scene.
That December my sister finds an identical ring
online and gifts it to me for Christmas. The ring was worn and loved and
periodically lost many times over the next decade. Once it spent the whole of a
winter under my friend’s deck. We were hot tubing and it fell off the chair where
I had placed my clothes and was not recovered until the snow melted and her
parents found it.
Now comes August 2012. I went to Madeline Island, WI
for my friend’s birthday (different friend than the one mentioned above but no
less lovely and wonderful). We were camping near a beach and when a few of us
decided to go skinning dipping at night I took my ring off. Long story short,
when the cop told us to put our clothes back on, the ring was temporary
forgotten and thus lost to the sand and surf.
Side
note: Lake Superior and I have a touchy relationship. I
love that lake so much. It is beautiful, calming, and so much fun; and yet once
every few years or so it takes something very important to me. My freshmen year
of college I went down for a moonlight swim and forgot to take off my glasses.
After diving under and resurfacing blind, I knew they were gone forever. I try
to be cautious around the lake but mama has her ways and takes what she will.
The lake has her ways and I had a feeling I would be
paying for the weekend in one way or another. A sacrifice was made and that weekend
will live forever in the minds and hearts of all those who were there. It was a
very special vacation and carries the nine of us through the years to this day.
I just celebrated the winter solstice with them for the first time and it was
just as lovely and wonderful as that time on Madeline Island.
I’ve been ring-less for a few months now. At first
it was really weird not wearing anything on my left thumb. It’s surprising how
accustom we become to the clothes we wear or the jewelry we put on every day. I
really did/do miss that ring. You can see there was some real history wrapped
around it. I really wanted to keep it for a long time. Nothing like a heirloom but
something to have and hold for a good portion of my life.
My parents got me two rings this Christmas. They’re
like the other one in that they are both made of steel, nothing fancy. No “tribal”
designs this time. They are nice and I wear them both, one on my left thumb and
the other on my right index. The new rings still feel odd on my hands but in
time I’ll get use to them. I don’t really have a good story for them. Never the
less, in time I will have written and told tales that include them too.
Perhaps I should name them?
