Meaning Making: A Turquoise Ring in the Rain
Life is beautiful and hard. Did you know this?
Right. Of course you did.
The life is beautiful part is easy, the life is hard part is…hard (please stay with me, I promise to make it make sense).
I have three degrees, all focusing on psychology. I have taken classes on Sociology and Positive Psychology and Geology, although that last one I really did not want to take, but Ohio State made me take it for an unbelievable cost per credit hour in order to make me more “well rounded,” which I have interpreted to mean “poor.”
Anyway, in all the psychology classes that I took (because I wanted to), we covered all the bits and bobs of the human experience.
We learned about what an incredible milestone it is for babies to realize that just because the ball is under the couch doesn’t mean the ball is gone from the universe, but just hidden from their view (I realize this example really applies more to dogs, but I mother a dog…so).
We learned about how people behave anywhere from “kind of” to “super” unhinged in groups, like turning over cars after a particularly intense sporting event or I don’t know…storming the capitol of a major democracy.
You know, frat stuff.
We also learned about grief and acceptance and uncertainty and loss, and just how people move through very big and difficult things in life.
The most universally effective thing one could do in order to move through a painful or momentous experience, was to be able to derive meaning from it.
Some people rely on religion as the river carrying their raft, and say, “God has a plan.”
Some people might look at their life now and think of all the ways their present may not have happened if they weren’t bumped toward a particular path as a direct result of the big event years earlier.
There are really no rules for how to make meaning, only that doing so helps, and often, helps a lot.
When I was growing up, my therapist tried to help me see how useful it is to find the meaning in everyday things to make them easier or more enjoyable. Sometimes this was to help me get through something negative, and other times it was to help me hang on to something positive. I had a tendency to put my head down and plow through and miss so much as a way to miss the bad, but it turned out I missed it all.
I learned about the importance of meaning making on the couch in my therapist’s office, I learned it in college classrooms, and I learned it in life. I make meaning as a writer when I observe the world and think, “huh, that person crossing the street reminds me of …” then take it and create something beautiful in a sprint on my keyboard.
When I moved to Arizona in the summer of 2022, I wanted to find the perfect turquoise ring.
I also wanted desperately to not step on a rattlesnake or have a scorpion fall out of a ceiling vent in my bedroom, as all the “AZ Aware” Facebook groups I mistakenly joined for preparedness tried to warn (read: scare the shit out of) me.
I’ve lived here for about a year and a half and I hadn’t found the perfect ring until a few weeks ago. It’s not that there weren’t choices, it’s that none of them struck me with any sort of meaning.
I could grab any old ring from a flea market or thrift store or jewelry store and call it mission accomplished, but that wasn’t the reason for the mission.
I’d nearly given up on finding “the” ring until we pulled a stealthy U-turn and parked the truck on the street in the center of town in Prescott, AZ. We had seen the white tents of an art show from a distance as we cruised through this mountain town while the rain drizzled on our windshield enough to require the wipers. We hadn’t experienced rain in five months and although it would have deterred us in the Midwest, it welcomed us in the Southwest.
I grabbed my sweatshirt and pulled my hiking backpack over my shoulder, making sure to clip the dog’s pop-up water bowl to the strap as I stepped onto the curb and shut the door of the truck behind me. My partner grabbed the dog’s leash and met me on the sidewalk, ready to go.
We walked through the grassy square, real grass, and peered in each tent as we went. We grabbed four kinds of samosas at one vendor and sat on a stone half-wall to eat them, our pup’s nose in the air assessing the smells.
The sky darkened and it became evident more rain was coming, real rain. We grabbed our things and decided to walk down one more aisle on the way back to the truck, and stopped at a tent full of turquoise jewelry.
The woman selling the pieces was not wearing a felted tan hat and too much makeup, like any cringy influencer, she wore braids and a bold turquoise necklace and introduced herself as Navajo. I returned her greeting anc asked if I could try on her rings, and she nodded and said, “Please!”
The first one I picked up had a nice fat oval stone with a soft wide silver band that had bears stamped all along the side. Bear. Our beloved dog-child’s nickname.
There it was, that tingly feeling that tells me something is afoot in the universe and this means something to me. I proceeded to try on nearly every ring that was stuck delicately in the velvet display mats, just in case.
There was a second ring that I was drawn to after trying on ring 6 or 7. It had a slightly smaller and lighter-colored stone that was turned on its side in the band, instead of the traditional vertical placement.
“East to West,” the woman said. I looked up at her as she continued, “When I was making that piece, I set the stone East to West and thought it looked so nice that it needed to stay just like that.”
East to West, I thought to myself. Just like me. I moved out here, to the American Southwest, from the Northeast.
And now I was stuck. I could make two meanings, and just what the heck does THAT mean?
I tried on these two favorites, one and then the other. Then each again, then both at the same time, for good measure. After much mulling and as the wind picked up, I told her I needed to go with the first one I tried on, the one with the bears.
She polished it and asked me if I’d like to wear it home, and I said, “absolutely.” I thanked her and turned to follow my family through the rain back to the truck.
I swirled the ring around my finger and admired the band over and over on the drive back to the valley, feeling lucky that my life has meaning and meaning to spare. Or at least, that my brain is trained and ready to create it.
Meaningfully yours,
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
Want to work your creative brain and log some self care at the same time? Check out the downloadable Self Care Activity Pack and get your word search on, color in front of your favorite TV show, and write a letter to your past and future self.
