11:15 pm
कुछ देखने में हमेशा कुछ और देखना छूट जाता है. मैं जब आज शाम को आसमान देख रहा था तो पेड़ पर लगे चांदनी के फूलों का झूमना छूटता रहा. मैंने जब दो बुलबुलों को एक दूसरे के पीछे भागते देखा तो एक बड़े से पत्ते का टूटना छूट गया.
मुझे रेस्त्राँ में बितायी फरवरी की एक सुबह की याद हो आयी जब मैं उसके साथ कोने वाली मेज़ पर बैठा था. मैं अधिकतर समय उसके हाथों को देखता रहा और मुझे उसके चेहरे को देखना छूटता रहा. मैंने जब उसको चूमा तो मैं दरवाज़े के तरफ़ किसी के आ जाने की आशंका से देखता रहा और इसमें उस लड़की की लगभग बरगंडी रंग की पलकों को बंद होता देखना छूट गया. मैं उसके साथ जाना चाहता था और दोनों को एकसाथ कहीं पहुँचते देखना चाहता था. मैं सोचता था कि क्या होते देखने से उसको विदा होते देखना छूट सकता है और फ़िर सब कुछ देखना छोड़ कर उसके लग जाता था.
1It’s official, the hurt and pain we felt back then is close to gone. Goodbye to our memories of beautiful saddness.
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this picture… it’s bittersweet for me. it’s so close to the romanticized teenage life i wanted in terms of aesthetics….so…so close. as much as “so close yet so far” hurts, i’m so glad to have this madlad in my life.
0Shacking up with an ex-colonist
It was my English boyfriend from Woking in 1996 who really got me into Bob Marley. He was a rebel that one (my boyfriend). A rebel with a masters degree in town planning and with a dad who was a professor at the Westminster Uni. LOL. Tim was part of some of the most iconic developments in Kuala Lumpur (KL).
Met him at Hard Rock Cafe in 1996. We were both regulars there and he used to hang with his Chinese women friends. For some reason, I liked him though I never spoke to him. He looked fun. He was 26, I was 22. I had a Swiss boyfriend then who was working in the US.
One day, me and a college friend went up to these mountains not far from KL city. It was a little theme park and gambling town, privately owned. Surprise, surprise. At the food court, who do I see but Tim. My friend nudged me that this was fate and I needed to go say hello.
I did and he said, “oh I recognize you.” The rest was a two-year history of a loving relationship with a supporting boyfriend who was himself finding his own way in Asia. Uncannily, the college I was transferring to, attending the course which would finally send me to New Zealand to do my degree, was five minutes away from Tim’s office. Oh the amount of days we got drunk around the bars and clubs in that little party nook. We had a lot of fun. I wanted to marry him but he wasn’t ready. Though he was buying me all these expensive gifts.
Love, Bob and Britain
One was a 4-CD booklet of Bob Marley’s songs from his ska period in 1962 till’ he died in 82. The first time I heard a young Bob singing, awesome ska music that was always protest songs! Gosh, the man was a born activist!
I was so influenced by Bob that I got a ganja leaf tat on my arm in Singapore, when I accompanied Tim for a work trip. Tim too influenced me to become the adult I did, from the 22-year-old lost soul. He taught me Bob Marley, activism, what human rights and injustice meant and how I could change things.
Most importantly, this English white boy who was part of the colonial influence in Malaysia, introduced me to many amazing books, and science fiction. He bought me reams and reams of Arthur C Clarke.
Holidays with his parents (the prof and his equally amazing teacher wife) and Tim’s two younger sisters, consisted of reading books and lots of beers discussing everything about world politics, history and everything under the sun. I grew up with the Booths for two years.
I experienced with them ushering in the new era of Britain’s Labour Party with the Blairs. We were holidaying at an island of the east coast. I experienced the death of Diana Spencer, I was holidaying on an island on the west coast with Tim.
The end
Sadly, when I left to do my degree two years later to New Zealand, we broke-up. It was really bad. Really, really bad. One which took me years, until I was marrying another man six years later, brought closure. Tim married another girl who looked exactly like me nine months after we broke-up.
He was the boat I missed.
In 2013, after my divorce, we spoke again for the first time. He assured me that not only I changed his life but my presence was counted. In so many ways. That I will always matter.
We remain friends, he lives in New Zealand now with his Malaysian Indian wife still (she doesn’t look or talk like me, she just shares the same skin color and country) and I still have that 4-CD Bob Marley book.
I just listen to Songs of Freedom on Spotify now.
0#BijouxBios is Back … ✨
As we have been sheltering in place, many of us have used our house-bound time to tackle projects we never had time to do before: organize photo albums, rummage through all those cards and letters we’ve saved, straighten up drawers and re-arranging our jewelry boxes.
With all these activities we are visiting the time before the virus. Looking over the things we have accumulated over our lives, we are re-visiting a life which right now seems distant to us. Our pieces of jewelry, as Meagan points out in our next Bijoux Bios post below, can especially serve as our “totems of memory.”
We are resuming our Bijou Bios offerings — stories about jewelry and how it affects our lives — with Meagan’s comments because we believe they especially resonate during this time of loss. Jaye Ann Terry interviewed Meagan — in the intimacy of her kitchen in Eastpoint, Florida, while she was preparing a meal — on April 21, 2019, long before anyone had heard of Covid-19. Yet the themes she touches upon are more poignant than ever in light of all the grandmothers and grandfathers, Papas and Nanas, abuelas and abuelos who have been taken by the deadly virus.
With every death, a history is passed on to the next generation. For Meagan, that history took the form of a jewelry box and pieces from her grandmothers jewelry collection. For everyone who has experienced a loss at this time, we hope they have something they can hold in their hands to remind them of their loved ones.
Meagan’s remarks have been condensed and edited for clarity. We hope you enjoy her memories of her grandmother as much as we did…
Meanwhile, remember to wash your hands frequently — even if it means that you have to take off your rings — temporarily! — to do it. And if you have a jewelry story to tell, please send it on to bijouxbios1@gmail.com. We strongly believe that stories are needed more than ever as a way to bind us in a common humanity as we globally fight this pandemic.
— Jaye Ann Terry & Margo Hammond
💎
~ ~ ~
JEWELRY: TOTEMS OF MEMORY
“Whenever we would go to my grandmother’s house, she would get out her jewelry. My grandmother had pieces that ranged from very fine jewelry to costume jewelry. She had a love for jewelry, and I guess that got passed on to me.”
“When my grandmother passed away, I got her jewelry box. It is one of those boxes with little pull-out drawers and a flip top. When you open it the sides stack out. That’s probably what we really loved as children: watching how the jewelry box opened. It kind of smells like her, you know, and I just love to open it.”
“It’s nice to have that, and also to have some of her pieces. I kind of get to experience again, her joie de vivre. Her love of life came through in her jewelry for sure. She liked bright things.”
“When I was young, I went through a real minimal thing. I didn’t wear any jewelry at all. And then as I got older, I was like, well, I have all these beautiful things and jewelry is a nice way to express yourself sometimes. It’s also a way to remember people because a lot of my beautiful pieces of jewelry were gifts and when I wear those pieces I get to think of the people who gave them to me.”
“So I think a lot of times a piece of jewelry is for me a little totem of memory, an easy way to connect with somebody that isn’t there.”
“When my grandmother passed away, there was so much she left behind that reminded me of her. She had collections of all kinds of things, things we had interacted with all throughout our lives. But she lived in northern Maine and I lived in Florida, so I couldn’t carry away a piece of pottery but I could put some of her jewelry in my carry-on bag.”
“For me jewelry is important. It’s a way to connect with your history. It’s a really easy way to carry your history around.”
💎
~ ~ ~
Meagan,
Interviewed by #BijouxBios on April 21, 2019,
From her kitchen in Eastpoint, Florida
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Speaking of summer birthdays.
When i turned 8, my friend and i had a double birthday party at a local pool. My sister was like 15 at the time, and was the certified scene queen of 2007. The friend who i was sharing a party with was Rich. Her mom was a Karen, full blooded 100% Karen. Funny enough, her actual name was very close to the name Karen.
Anyways, it was a fun party besides from my friends mom’s holier than thou Karen attitude. It came time to open presents and my sister handed me a present. It was a small, rectangular box that looked like it had jewlery inside. Everyone gathered around to watch me open it.
Inside of the box was a tampon covered in ketchup, courtesy of my sister. The reaction of the party was priceless. But Karen’s was the best. The absolute shock and confusion on her face. She went around asking everyone at the party, hysterically, “what is that???? What is that!!!!”
0cloudy morning, watching clips by melanie martinez, younger brother’s laughter, resentment of a friend, warm smiles, headache from lack of sleep, arguments about feminism, wind in your hair, revelations at midnight, sound sleep
0Um dia a gente olha nossas fotos antigaa e um turbilhão de emoções vem a flor da pele. Sentimos saudade, vergonha, vontade de rir, chorar, voltar aquele lugar e fazer algo diferente, dizer o que realmente poderia ter mudado tudo. Mas nessa hora sabemos tbm que nada dura pra sempre. Nos tornamos sábios pra dizer que o tinha que acontecer, aconteceu do jeito que deveria. O universo tem um timming perfeito pra tudo. Seja pra durar pra sempre aquele meio segundo perfeito que passou e durar pra sempre aquela dor que já não dói mais. Liberdade é não negar que foi perfeito mesmo se doeu, mesmo se deveria aquele amor ter ficado se eu tivesse dito algo ou feito algo ou nao ter deixado ir sem insistir. As lembranças foram feitas para durar pra sempre, não as pessoas ou momentos e a gente precisa aceitar isso.
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:Riproducendo ORA: Nostalgia
(Feat: Pensieri e Ricordi) ───────────⚪────── ◄◄⠀▐▐⠀►► 𝟸:𝟷𝟾 / 𝟹:𝟻𝟼⠀───○ 🔊
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