The Quonsequences of Losing One's Diamonds

We got a new dog last month: Sadie.1 Arguably, it was a bad idea. There are “quonsequences” to this decision. Normal “quonsequences” like sacrificial gloves and books lost to her budding choppers. Sadie cruises the counter with lithe, one-year-old limbs, has separation anxiety and a lust for our chickens that throws her into day-long frenzies when our two hens break out of their coop to roam the yard. For now, we’ve decided to keep Sadie and give Sparkles and Ms. Penny to a friend who treats their chickens very well.

A week into knowing Sadie, I took her for a walk around the short forest loop behind our house. At that point, we only had a choke collar for her and she was pulling up the hill with oxen strength. Back inside the house, I looked down at my hands and noticed that a diamond2 was missing from my ring, presumably plucked from the golden prongs by her lead rubbing across my knuckles. This wasn’t the first time a tragedy had struck this piece of jewelry.

The ring—two diamonds in a swirling gold 90s setting—belonged to Derek’s grandmother, Fran. We referred to the ring style as “Fran-ular”—Fran was an impeccably sharp dresser. When Derek first gave it to me, we talked about getting it re-cast but I grew to like it—a gaudy counterpoint to my muddy boots. Then, during our chaotic packing for a Rhode Island wedding (our house was majorly under construction with a rotating cast of family and friends carrying out the work alongside us, I had just started a new job, things were very stressful), the ring disappeared.

I was in the passenger seat of Derek’s car when I noticed it was missing. We were five minutes from home, had a five-hour drive ahead of us, and were already late. It’s impossible to know how long it will take to find something like a ring. We figured it was in the house and that we’d find it when we got back from the trip. It was a good wedding but the anxiety of potential loss loomed over us. One stone was from Fran’s engagement ring, the other was from a ring that had once belonged to Fran’s aunt. I felt extremely guilty. When we returned home we turned our upside down house upside down—no ring.

Eventually, we had to tell Fran we’d lost the ring. While she didn’t express anger at that moment, I knew her well enough to know that she felt much more than she let on. Or so I assumed. Then, one morning almost eleven months later, Derek opened the passenger door of his car and the ring was glinting up at him from underneath the seat where I was sitting when I realized I had lost it. The ring rejoined my finger, I was euphoric. A month later, we got married. Fran wore a gigantic pink sun hat to the wedding.

That was nearly eight years ago. Given that the diamond that recently jumped ship is likely sitting on top of brown leaves less than fifty feet from our front door, we’re aware that it’s a possibility that it will show up. Every time we take Sadie for a walk, we scan for it. I’ve been encouraging the kids to track the diamond, play detective but they’re relatively uninterested. They want to blow bubbles for Sadie or ride bikes. Similar feelings have returned—guilt, unease—but also an awareness that these things happen, and at least I still have the body of the ring, the golden swirls still holding one of Fran’s diamonds. The other could return. I hope it does.

Nearly every morning on our way to school, the diamond resurfaces in conversation. Sometimes it’s about how Aloysius will get the diamond back to me after I die. “Mama, if I find the diamond after you die, I’ll dig down and bury it in your skull. In your eyes. That’s my idea. What’s yours?”

“Mama, if I find the diamond after you die, I’ll dig down and bury it in your skull. In your eyes. That’s my idea. What’s yours?”

Or, “I’ll put the diamond back on your ring, on your finger. Then you’ll be a beautiful skeleton.”

Sometimes it’s just him noting that the diamond is still gone, keeping it on our radar. Then, he’s back to:

• “All houses are statues.”
• “We can do anything we want at home, right? But we can’t be eerie or escape from the parents.”
• “What is a mine?”
• “What is socializing?”
• “Can eyeballs break?”
• “What are ‘quonsequences?’”

“Mama,” Aloysius said the other day in the checkout line at the co-op, “You don’t stand a ghost of a chance.”

New Work in the World

More pitching, grant-writing.

I returned to Orgonon for a blissful 24-hour reconnaissance mission.

Currents

I’m reading Will Hunt’s Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet and highly recommend it, in part because of asides like this one:

Surveyors often resorted to absurd measures, such as an Austrian explorer named Joseph Nagel, who, in an attempt to illuminated a cave chamber, tied a rig of candles to the feet of two geese, then threw pebbles at the geese, hoping they would take flight and cast their light through the dark. (It didn’t work: the geese wobbled lamely and tumbled earthward.)

Nonstop, I am listening to these two songs by Abner Jay: “I’m So Depressed” and “My Baby is Comin’ Back”. Probably, you have listened to them too, one hundred times. If not, perhaps consider doing so.

The plucking is divine and reminds me of Micah Blue Smaldone, this video of Micah in a church, the sun. Thank you for reading, friends.

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