Soft Spots

I am in some kind of frenzy right now. My grandmother's class ring, gold and onyx-- not a thing like those blood diamonds they sell in catalogs nowadays-- slipped off my finger last night. It's because of the change in weather, probably. My fingers shrunk just the slightest bit, and it landed softly in the grass somewhere, without any small metallic clink to indicate its disappearance. Now I comb the lawn. The rug. The backseat of my mother's car. I look in every pocket.

It occurs to me that there is a very slight chance that it is some kind of magic ring. Now, because it slipped off in the change-of-seasons, I am searching every pocket in every fall jacket I have ever worn. Maybe it is there. There are bobby-pins. A hospital bracelet. A bicycle charm from a cheap bracelet that snapped on the tile floor of the choir room, sending beads and metal bouncing everywhere. I am starting to buy into this magic ring bit more and more, though, because I just learned how to ride a bike last week, and I just went to the emergency room today. These long-lost bits and bobs are very persuasive, when I am sifting though piles of seldom-worn coats. When I am frenzied.

Once, I wore this brown vest (that does not have a ring in its pocket) to Fell's Point, where I sat over the Bay and thought I was going to lose my little velvet shoe. I thought it was just going to slip right off, and land with a small watery plop below, and I'd watch it sink slowly to the bottom until I could see it no more. I took off my shoes and held them while I sat, feet dangling over the water. Should one have dropped into the Chesapeake, it would not have turned up later under the bed. What a ridiculous thought. They were no magic shoes.

This ring, though-- I am unconvinced. It slipped off my middle finger into the unknown, and there is room in that space for magic. There is room especially when significant folk-objects and the Qunicy High School Class of 1955's legacy are involved. The ring is on a soft spot somewhere, where no one heard it fall. There is no cement or cold, hard facts; no chilly bay or tiled floor. It could be anywhere. I look in every pocket.

Photographs presumably taken by my cousin Peter, at Fell's Point, some years ago