Howdy Jewelry Fan!! August. August. August. As a Leo, I’m always perfectly at home in the blazing hot of August. And I gotta tell you—Tucson never disappoints in the BLAZING department. (I wasn’t punning about the fire earlier in the summer, I promise. But maybe I was and didn’t know it?) I actually know people who are perfectly at home in January, or November, or May, as it is their birth month and they resonate so perfectly with their heavenly home base, but for me, it’s always August.
Some of my earliest memories of August center around the long, last days of summer, a child’s perfect wish to hold onto the time before school began and the day long bike riding sessions and drawing chalk spaceships in the street and playing Horses and swing sets and lemonade on the back patio. I lived in extreme northwest New Jersey as a young child and the sunlight lasted until after my bedtime. I happily recall twilight dreams under my pink, cotton comforter (yes, I still have it. Like Dierks Bentley, “I Hold On”) where I’d ride horses across the west and zoom into space where the expanse of stars would twinkle and welcome me (I didn’t know the physics of the atmosphere interacting with the wavelengths of light, so in my woman child dreams, the stars ALWAYS twinkled, even when floating amongst them).
Heartbreaking to think I haven’t dreamed of visiting the stars in some years. But let’s talk about that another time…
Back to August.
And yellow jackets. The yellow jackets would invariably take up residence amongst the Juniper bushes (I think?? This is a grown up me insertion, as they had tiny blue berries??) in the front of my childhood home, right near the front door. We’d rush in quick, so they didn’t get in the house. We’d rush out just as quick, so we didn’t disturb the territorial Yellow Jackets and they didn’t chase us into the street. Yellow jackets scared the shit out of me and fascinated me. They were FIERCE. Unapologetic. Determined. Community Driven. They hurt, like over and over again, their act of stinging NOT a suicide like the fat little bumble bees pollinating the dandelions around the lawn. The Yellow Jackets added a tinge of danger to beautiful, perfect August.
When the nests became too large and too dangerous, my Dad would make us stay in the house and take care of it. Child me didn’t know what he did; grown up me knows it was not fun for him or the yellow jackets. But no matter how many times, how many years, he removed the nest, they were always back the next year. An innate lesson that some things can hurt you once and some things can hurt you over and over and over again. An internal lesson that yellow jackets were only doing exactly what they were meant to do. Their Queen, their everything. Their Hive. Their Home.
Fierce.
Most often times “fierce” is acknowledged to mean “having or displaying an intense or ferocious aggressiveness” and used to describe things that can kill and eat you. But further down the list of definitions is “showing a heartfelt and powerful intensity.” (These are Google definitions, but even Miriam’s on-line dictionary concedes fierce can mean “having or expressing bold confidence or style.”)
Fierce. Like a Yellow Jacket. Like a woman wearing a Yellow Jacket and displaying a Powerful Intensity.
And so, Jewelry Fan, we come to the heart of the matter, the “why” for the nostalgic trip down memory lane. I’m changing something here at Original Sin Jewelry. I’m changing our Cornerstone Principals from “Be Satisfied, Be Authentic, and Be Conscious” to “Defiantly Authentic, Proudly Unique, and Fiercely Rebellious.” While I still believe in the ethos of the first principals, they seem a bit commanding and preachy. What can I say my USNA Navy, Manager, Boss Lady was showing. Instead, I’d like to focus on the aspirational, the connective ideas that bring you and I together, Jewelry Fan. The tenets that knit us into a powerful community of Jewelry Fan and Patron Clubbers, Ladies and Gents, Young and Old. I believe these new ideals speak more to the HEART of US.
What do you think?? Are those the “Its of Us”, Jewelry Fan??? Are these the things that Bind Us together into a Community of Humans Reaching Towards our Best Selves? Comment on this or message me. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
In the meantime, check out the Birthday Shenanigans Collection. It focuses on all the things I’m putting down.
Comments will be approved before showing up.
