The Joys and Pains of Adornment
Week 19: Experimenting with Absurdism
I dropped my favorite earring down the sink today.
I’m not attached to jewelry, but Ken found this earring in a pool in Mexico last year. It’s a little pave diamond-studded token of his affection which undoubtedly means more to me than the original owner. He was playing with Nova while I read Wittgenstein’s Poker on the stairs. He swam up and dropped a small gold hoop in my hand. I cooed a little and fastened it to my ear. The clasp was a clever mechanism that might not have suited the previous owner, but it fit me just right. It hasn’t come off my body since.
I don’t change my jewelry often. Earrings are accessories, but I treat them as essential; I need an entity that works with me, stays with me, and complements me while I’m writing, swimming, playing with my kid, observing the world, moving my body, and if it works, I’ll cherish it. Most of the things that adorn me are near-constant fixtures, but I do enjoy a new piece so much so that I’ll sacrifice some flesh for it. I don’t need fly-by-night adornments that look cute and feel good for a moment. I’m looking for a solid gold implement.
A recent helix piercing has been a hassle since I got it a couple months ago, and the post finally left me yesterday. I thought about giving up on it, but I’ve always wanted this and have been considering turning it into a coin slot - a very permanent modification. I don’t take cuts in my flesh lightly. If I do this, it will leave a permanent mark on me that will never close. For some reason, I think after this helix piercing heals I’ll be able to consider going for the big one. This piercing hurts quite a bit, so fearing the pain of having to reopen it later, I tried jamming Ken’s earring in the wound that wasn’t meant for it.
It didn’t fit, of course, the post was too short. My ear was swollen and sore from trying to find a solution, and I knew it wouldn’t fit before I even tried it. It went in, but didn’t close neatly it had the day he dropped it in my hand. I remembered how wonderful that moment was, and felt stupid to try and make that fit somewhere it didn’t. I was angry with myself for having the audacity to try something new when this thing worked so well. I knew trying to make his earring fit here was only a temporary fix, and I could risk losing this earring by messing with it. It felt safe where it was. I realized I hadn’t ever taken the earring out because I could somehow drop it down the sink and lose it forever.
As if I brought it into the universe, the earring fell from the place it didn’t belong, and with two clinks it was gone - down the drain. I couldn’t believe it. My lip was actually fucking quivering, A wave of nausea hit me, knowing there may be no way to retrieve my prized possession. The pedestal sink has a facade that made me think there was no way for me to retrieve it. I shook my head at myself in the mirror. Why didn’t you think this through? You could have done anything different. You could have closed the drain, not done this over the sink, not tried the earring that I knew would be a temporary fix in a new place! I had a moment where I seriously considered that it was gone. And then I snapped out of it - worrying about shit without exploring the possibilities is dumb.
I swallowed hard lowering to my hands and knees, muttering a prayer to nowhere, hands reaching frantically behind the porcelain facade to see if I could reach the U-bend. My hand traced the straight pipe from top to bottom with gratitude for the possibility that all may not be lost. Finding the U-bend I impulsively started to unthread the fitting that would bring the lost thing back to me. No. Think before you do this. I took a beat to find a towel to catch any of the mess that might follow. I turned the valves to shut the water off and carefully unscrewed the nut from the trap on both ends. Balancing the trap filled with God-knows-what, I brought it to the basin, closed the drain, and positioned the towel to catch whatever would come out. I poured slowly grimacing at the phlegmy muck, and by the last drop, my earring hit the towel.
I knew it would be there if I took my time and worked diligently to save it. I rinsed the earring with peroxide and saline and placed it back where it belonged -promising not to take it out again, unless it decided to free itself from my body like it did to the owner before. I put a temporary post in the new wound and vowed to take the time to find right jewelry for any flesh wounds I create, and not try to expect things to serve purposes they aren’t meant to serve.
If the process of cutting into yourself were pure pain, no one would do it. The lust of pining over a shiny thing, the excitement of getting stuck with something sharp, the dull ache that comes right after, the annoyance of finding new ways to do normal things, the comfort and joy that comes from healing a thing and making something work, the sheer torture over the idea of losing a cherished thing that’s become part of who you are. Also, the self-dissatisfaction at choosing the wrong piece. It’s an expensive mistake, and more than a couple times I’ve lived bound by the sunk cost fallacy. If I’m honest, the piece I picked for this troublesome helix piercing wasn’t right, and I knew it the moment it found its way to me. Sometimes the piece you want isn’t the one you can get, but we make due. Sometimes, your body rejects a particular wound, and you lose the game. I’m not sure I’ll choose the right one this time - or ever, but I don’t do it entirely just to have a shiny thing on me. I do it for the whole shitty beautiful process. Until my body disintegrates, I’m going to live with a mixture of open wounds and healed scars, adorned for my enjoyment and maybe that of others.
When I thought I had lost my earring down the drain, a big of me thought Fuck it. Time for a change. Crawling on the ground I thought if the earring was gone, I’d get up right away and let someone scalpel and stitch me to the end that I think I want. But that was rash, and I’m scared. I’m terrified of the pain, of the healing, of regretting removing a piece of my person, of not being able to go back in time and regrow that part of me. If I had lost that earring, it might have propelled me straight to the hands of a would-be butcher, but I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad I found it, and with it found the ability to reason with myself through what feels important and not something to be dispensed with on a whim. One reaction turns into another and that’s how fear ruins lives.
Fear is also keeping me from getting what I think I want, but it’s also driving me to think about what I actually want - like, bich, I know a coin slot sounds crazy, and I can’t tell you exactly why I want it. The best thing to do seems to be to write, of course. This is how I consider what I want. I need to imagine the whole procedure, the crunch, the tug of the stitches, the healing, the strands of hair that will annoy me as they slip through the hole in my flesh - the pain I can’t fully comprehend, and balance that against a potential for joy that I also can’t comprehend. The outcome could range from the most bliss a hole in my body could produce to my ear falling off and being filled with the harshness of regret. Either way, I’ll inch closer until I’m ready to do the finding out part of fucking around.
And then what when I have it and all goes well? Fear and desire only beget more fear and desire. We rinse and repeat. I’m sure I’ll find myself in the U-bend again. I’m sure I’ll be picking out jewelry and considering my pain threshold and all that comes with continuing to cut ourselves open and adorn our lives with what makes it all feel worth it. It’s all temporary, and we can never imagine the horror and beauty that comes with the potential to lose things that never belonged to us in the first place.