A question I was asked recently...

I love to create jewelry.  I love to wear jewelry.  I love bling, always have.

I was wearing a necklace recently.  A friend of mine made it.  It is a lovely silver wire wrapped pendant with three beautiful freshwater pearls.  The pendant hangs from a simple silver chain.  It is a favorite piece of mine.

My friend, Janet, loves to make jewelry too.  She is a Jewelry Artist.  She sells her work locally and on ETSY.  She created this beautiful necklace.

I was complimented on the necklace by another friend.  The simple beauty of it.  And how everything I make is so lovely.  I told her that this necklace was designed by a friend of mine.  Before I could say another word, she asked me a question: "you make jewelry, why would you want to wear someone else's?"

That question stumped me at the time.  I said "because I like it"  in one of those responses that comes out like a meek question...ugh.

I've thought a good bit about her question since then. 

And here is what I wish I had said.

I love to create jewelry.  I love to wear jewelry.  I also ADMIRE many of the Jewelry Artisans that I have had the privilege to know, learn from, interact with, and so much more.  They make extraordinary pieces.  I buy their works of art because they are so extraordinary.  I admire the Artists and their creations.

I wish I had said that.

So, Janet, Beanzie, Brenda Sue, Harry and a few more of you....I admire you as Jewelry Artists and love to wear your creations.  And when I am complimented on your pieces, I proudly share that you are the creator of the beautiful piece I am wearing. 

And will now have no trouble explaining why.

Here is the latest piece I have purchased, and can't wait to wear!  A Brenda Sue Lansdowne signed original!

Something that is hard to put into words.....

My husband and I just returned from spending several weeks in Arizona.  We experienced several Train trips like travelers once enjoyed in the 19th century.  We saw The Verde Canyon and The Grand Canyon....the Red Rocks of Sedona, the Navajo Reservation, the Painted Desert, the old Route 66, and so much more.  We also had the opportunity to share a few days with our son and his wife, who now live on the west coast.  That was the best part!

The entire trip was a multitude of memorable adventures and mishaps.  We met some interesting people and ate some delicious food.  Took hundreds of pictures.  The things one does when on vacation.

I am glad that we went.  I am glad to be home.  I brought home with me something I want to share.  Not pictures, or stories, or souvenirs, or all the other kinds of things shared upon returning from a vacation.

I am not sure what to call it...a memory....an experience....I just know this is different for me.  A light bulb moment...as Oprah Winfrey says.

While at the Grand Canyon...the first time I had ever been there...I experienced something beyond the wonder of the vast natural beauty surrounding me...what I was seeing with my eyes.

I stopped looking...and my thoughts became my eyes...and I was the scenery. 

I had a sense of my being there fully in a conscious way....as if the physical awareness of myself and all of the people and the scenery was not as important.  Now, I did not have an out of body experience....or stuff like that. 

It was more of a sense of awe from within.  A sense of awe about myself.  As if for the first time in my life I truly grasped the significance of  my being "me".  That I was more than "in the moment"...that the moment was "me".....looking at "me"....the seeing of "me".. was as amazing as looking at what surrounds me.

That what surrounded me on the outside was as grand as what is within myself, within each of us.  How unique and ever changing  we are.  How extraordinary we all are.  And... here is the profound part.. we includes "me".

That seeing myself ...not in a physical mirror...in a mental mirror...is a view I have heard about....like the Grand Canyon....yet not experienced....and is just as they say....you have to be there...and you don't want to miss it.

Seeing "me" was not the same as having my thoughts or feelings, or looking in the mirror.

I am struggling with the words here to convey this...the adjectives to describe it, to share it.  It has taken me hours to write this.

Maybe writing about it is some way for me to not lose grasp of it..to give it a tangible existence so that I can hold onto it...or have the experience of it not fade away in memory...as so many experiences sometimes do.

Like seeing the Grand Canyon.....I have seen what I have never seen before.