Ripples
I haven’t posted in a while. I wanna talk about “ripples”, the impressions we leave in peoples lives. The example I want to use is actually kind of a weird one, its common knowledge that I wear a lot of swag—that is to say, jewelry— and every bracelet and necklace and bracelet and chain has significance to me. I wear a chain-mail bracelet made for me by mimi, a bottle-opener ring given to me by chelsea, and a ring with a dolphin that belonged to me little brother until he stopped wearing rings. A bike chain bracelet that I made while building a bike with my dad, I’ve had four different fork bracelets, I’ve made all of them, but I got the forks from different places. One from my dads restaurant where I worked As a cook for several years, one that I found on the street in Eugene, and the most recent one I stole from a restaurant in corvalis on Qaceis birthday. I wear three different necklaces; one is a hippy necklace my mom brought back from Mexico for me, one is a whistle, it’s modeled after an old British police whistle, but significance for me lies in that it’s the whistle given to children soldiers in the Congo who are to small to carry a firearm. And the third necklace carries an assortment of pendants; half of a set of drama masks (the other half I gave to mimi when we were dating), a cool looking zipper tab I found in lurtle my first year at nbtsc, a key, the twin of which I gave to Hannah when we were together years ago symbolically as “the key to my heart” ( cliche I know, but we were young), and a electric blue can tab to remind me of a phase when I liked to wear cool looking trash to look punk. I also wear an anklet that I made out of animal sinew by twisting it into cord and weaving it while on my flatboat trip from st. Louis to Memphis. Most of my piercings hold minor sentimental value, but in particular, the black spike I wear in my eye-brow I bought in a little town just south of patricks point state park in California while there for a homeschooling campout. Danny Collins bought a matching one with me for his lebrae. So in a big way, I associate these items with these people and places and times and emotions. A carry little pieces of all these people with me. So that’s what I have to say about ripples. Remember that even if you think your interactions with someone are casual and insignificant, you may have left more of an impression than you could ever know. People who you talk to for 5 minutes and then never see again might remember you for the rest of their lives. Words, actions, smiles, frowns, gifts, they all mean something. Make them count. Peace and love.
