February 20, 2018
Last summer, I lost my diamond wedding band in the Alpha Vita supermarket parking lot in Skopelos. One week later, David found it but not before a car had run over it. The perfect circle was now distressed and a diamond chip was missing. I returned it to my finger with renewed promises of constancy and carefulness.
One morning, last winter, a sore earlobe prompted me to remove my Mikomoto pearl earring and place it carefully on the arm of the couch next to me. I then proceeded to forget it. By the time my coffee was finished and I returned the cup to the kitchen, the couch arm was empty; earring gone. I moved the couch (heavy), peeled back the rug, felt under the adjacent rose-colored couch, amongst the cushions. I even cleaned the whole living room then emptied the vacuum cleaner picking carefully for my earring as the dust sifted into the trash bin. Yuck! I then searched improbable places where maybe it could have leapt to a new hiding place. No luck. It seemed to want to be gone. Perhaps it fell into the gaping holes by the radiator legs, a passage into the unknown bowels of our 100-year-old house. If that be true, the earring is gone from my life forever.
But perhaps in the days ahead, we will make one more energetic search in the hope of finding the pearl of my Papa’s eye, one piece from that special set of Mikomoto pearls that he bestowed on his beloved 16-year-old daughter many many years ago.