I’d only just posted the previous blog entry when I started putting away laundry. I was starting to clear away jewelry that had been strewn across the top of my dresser, when I went into a sudden cleaning frenzy and thought, “I’ll bet there’s stuff in my jewelry box I could stand to get rid of…” (Read: rainbow “candy” necklaces and bracelets from my raving days when I was going under the pseudonym “Venus”… don’t ask.)

I started going through the chambers and, lo and behold, there was a small pile of charms that never made it to anything larger, including one that my mother had purchased for me eight summers ago in Yellowstone. A Navajo bear, that I would absolutely have picked out for myself if she hadn’t given it to me for Christmas.

… Thanks, Universe.