The Soul of the World Can Sing

Besides connecting with, and being inspired by, lots of amazing women over the last week, I lost two things of importance to me: a Gucci watch and a home. Actually, to be more precise, I lost the watch, the home I’m in the process of losing.

My ex-husband gave me the Gucci soon after we married. I think the latch broke, worn down after more than two decades of use, and the watch fell off in a street somewhere. Something similar, metaphorically speaking, happened to our marriage.

I’d become attached to that watch, just as I had to the marriage. Not surprising, I guess, given that both had been attached to me for most of the last 25 years. Sometimes I still feel sad over the loss of the marriage, even though it ended more than three years ago. My sadness over the watch was more fleeting; it’s been easier to replace than a soul mate.

I retrieved a long-unused stand-in (of the watch I mean!) from my jewelry box, but it quit after a couple of days. So did option two, a recent gift from a friend. (My guess is both watches need new batteries.) That left me bare-wristed on business trip to Kuwait – a fortuitous circumstance as it turns out.

Hidden in a sea of same-ish Seikos, Timexes, and Rolexes at Dubai Duty Free, I discovered the most wondrous wrist-wear one could possibly imagine. The watch itself is almost incidental. It’s strung into a jangly piece of jewelry dripping with sparkling pink hearts and oversized fake pearls – more like a charm bracelet than anything else. It’s so delightfully over-the-top that I laughed out loud when I tried it on.

Had the Gucci not been lost, and the batteries not died in its two potential replacements, I wouldn’t have found this pink and pearly masterpiece – the epitome of bling bliss – that I now sport on my left wrist.

More important though, it’s discovery has helped me to be more hopeful about the loss of a home and the prospect of finding another, perhaps even more joyful place in which to park myself for awhile.

And wearing it reminds me to listen more carefully for the language of the soul of the world, because it speaks in many different voices, and often in unusual ways. Occasionally it even sings, through what might first appear to be an inconsequential bit of bling.