“The Kindred Spirit.”
40” of sterling pearls and focal beads of your choosing.
A new strand for the core collection, originally conceived as a custom for a dear friend. We’ve grown very close over the past year, in spite of never having met in person, due to shared loves and struggles as pre-tenure academic moms. It can be so hard to find and keep close friends in mid-life, with the pull and tug of work and kiddos and endless chores and on and on. For these reasons and more, I cherish this friendship immensely, as I do all the friendships forged over the past couple of years (you “lobsters” and Leos and artist friends know who you are 😘).
I named this strand to honor the deep magic of adult friendship, and offer it (at my friend’s generous encouragement) as a talisman for those in search of kindred spirits of their own. As one of my favorite characters in fiction once said: “Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
And it strikes me that this is a perfect strand to release close to my little shop’s second anniversary—I fell into beading after the falling apart of a friendship I had valued so deeply a little over two years ago. I still don’t understand the whys of it, but I know the awful and shame-inducing feeling of being discarded, and if I’ve learned anything since, it’s that this experience is so common, but is something very rarely talked about in the open. So, my lovely people, this strand is for you especially. To serve as a reminder of your cherished friendships and to offer a bit of comfort in times where friendships come to an end, and to remind you that however painful those losses are, there are always kindred spirits out there to find, and those lovely folks will be so overjoyed to find you in kind. 🖤