Ear Candy

Writing to you from the depths of illness again.  Mostly (I hope thanks in part to my utter and complete laziness yesterday, because I otherwise wouldn’t be able to live with that level of inertia) better today, except for a completely raw throat, fatigue, and residual soreness.  I didn’t go to my 9 am this morning, but will go to my 2:30. Present at the very least (but just barely) in body.

I slept for two hours today.  I never nap. I have never before in my life napped, except in the car.  But I’ve just been so tired that there’s no helping it, so I have to assume this is what my body wants.  My cat Minerva is doing her best to assist, mainly by fwumping her grande dame voluptuousness down on me so I lose all willpower to rise.  And I’m having fever dreams (that would make a surreal list).

Anyway, onto earrings.  This is a quick and mostly visual list I put together.  The best thing about earrings is that my ears aren’t pierced- or haven’t been for at least a decade. I got them pierced with my most most most beloved cousin Megan when we were tiny girls who stilled could bathe in a cooler together.  But after an infection (I think in my left) I let mine close.  Letting my holes close was one of the best decisions I’ve made in life- okay, that’s overstating it, but a good one- for many reasons.  First, I have a verging on the weird awesome and body-positive level of pride in my earlobes.  They’re just like my Moms and her earlobes are divine.  I wouldn’t want to change them (or mine) at all. That means no stretching. Also, I have a lot of hair.  And it gets caught in everything.  My cats mouth, chair joints, my mouth, other people’s mouthes- you get the idea.  Can you imagine what would happen if I had earrings? I feel like at home point I would end up with gnarled dreads descending like pigtails from each earlobe.  Like the earring would be that little flaw in the cave ceiling that causes the stalactite to form (so visual! I must be feverish!).  Lastly, and maybe most importantly, when I look at earrings now I am pleasant removed from all (well, most, because I’m only human and sometimes I want a Vespa even though it’s the middle of winter in New England) feelings of want and acquisitiveness.  Instead of lusting for expensive earrings I can sit back and admire them more as works of art, which is really nice.  Things I can visually appreciate removed from my sense of how they would interact with my life.  It’s much easier to see the beauty in things, in my experience, when those are your feelings, because your experience has been removed from the kind of painful feeling of vainly wanting. Instead of bittersweet, it’s just sweet.

It’s the feeling you get in art museums, surrounded by things beautiful to look at and think on, but that you would never consider hanging above your couch (or, even worse, your television).  It’s the feeling I have with perfume and the feeling I hope I can reach soon in relation to clothes (and countless other things).  It’s some kind of peace of mind.

So I hope you can join me in appreciating the following earrings for being beautiful and pretty and frivolous and desirable.  Without the desire actually attached.

Unknown

Dolce & Gabbana

Of Rare Origin

Mercedes Salazar

Oscar de la Renta

Lydia Courteille

Gucci

Okay the one exception for me? The lily pad earrings, which I would love to be able to afford for the best roommate ever, Lily (who does have pierced ears.  And who, in my sickness, brought me a thing of Advil (of which I had none) and a white rose.)  She knows what I need.

Also, another way for me to cruelly destroy My (and maybe your) earring equanimity and zen?  You can still wear them as brooches.  Want anew, my friends.