Day 3 of Writing Every Day for 28 Days
Today I got number 13, and what I consider to be the most cliché and boring of all the prompts I chose. Jewellery telling a story. Yawn. You’ve seen Titanic, right? I did something fairly cliché in my writing yesterday by anthropomorphising an inanimate object and leaving the reader to figure out which (did you figure it out?), so I am not going to do that again today. I could write about clichés and how some people love them and some people roll their eyes at them and although it seems I am in the latter category I actually kinda like them? Ooh ooh ooh I have it!
This piece of jewellery has a story
This inexpensive piece of jewellery that I bought online tells a story about clichés. It’s perfect. I bought it before Game of Thrones ended, alongside another necklace that I thought was really cool at the time, pun completely intended, that said on it “Winter is coming”. The item I am talking about today shares most characteristics with this pendant, in that it is on a chain and consists of a small coin-sized flat circle covered in a clear dome and surrounded by a metal frame. The surface of the circle is white and has something printed on it in black. Today’s subject-informing object is my caffeine molecule necklace.
When I saw it I may have thought ‘I am going to look so smart and sophisticated and people who know what it means will smile, and nod in my direction and think “she gets it”, and then they will want to be my friend and I will grow a gentle army of cool smart friends who also get it and then nobody will be able to bully me for being uncool ever again and haha to all of you haters from primary school’. Or something like that. I saw it, I liked it, it was off Etsy so the artist was gonna get most of the money, and it was also aesthetically pleasing.
I do like chemistry and physics, and biology (okay I like science), and I am lowkey obsessed with the periodic table because it’s pretty much the only thing I remember from highschool Science class. I also love coffee. My partner jokes that I don’t really love coffee because I “pollute” it with oat milk, while he does (love it) because he has it black “like his heart”. But he also drinks Instant at work and I don’t, so he doesn’t really love it either.
So there is the basis for the necklace being perfect for me. It’s cool. I still like it. I haven’t worn it in ages though, and now I am wondering - what story does it really tell? Does it say “This woman loves coffee and science”? Does it say “This woman is pretentious AF and wants to show off how smart and addicted to coffee like a real professional adult she is”? Does it say “OMG a snobby person wearing a symbol I don’t recognise; how intimidating; I hate them”? Does it say “NERD”? Does it tell no story at all, because who gives a shit what some woman is wearing around her neck when there are starving children in impoverished countries/there are wars/the climate is changing beyond repair/I have a lot of personal issues and what someone else is wearing means absolutely nothing to me/insert reason here?
I am going to go with the “she drinks coffee like a professional adult” cliché and explore that a little. Clichés exist because we reach common ground as humans on a lot of issues. They get called cliché by people who either don’t sit on that common ground, or are embarrassed or disappointed that they do. Clichés are not good or bad as a rule, they just are. ‘Mmmm Coffee’ is a total cliché in which I partake. There are many memes about our much loved cuppa joe and our relationship to it. I personally love the taste, and the feel, and the smell, and I love the ritual of it. Before my ADHD diagnosis I didn’t realise that I was also self-medicating with it. It is a stimulant and it helped me in many more ways than just giving me energy- it helped me focus and carry on; it helped clarify my thoughts. I suspect it helps a lot more people than it’s given credit for, in more ways than just an energy boost or a mild buzz. And yes, because it helps so many people, and is physically addictive, and it punctuates the structure of the workday for millions of people, of course it has become a cliché.
So yeah, my necklace wasn’t passed down through generations (nor will it be - I’m not a breeder); I didn’t find it amongst the rubble of a broken life; it wasn’t given to me by a long lost friend or a lover; I wasn’t drawn to it “as if by fate”; it wasn’t worn during a transformative time in my life; and it didn’t once belong to a famous or particularly important person. My necklace has a story because it’s a total cliché - just like the concept of a piece of jewellery telling a story.