Keep It Like a Secret: Lockets
In elementary school, I would read any book with the word "mystery" or "secret" in it. One of my favorites was The Clue in the Broken Locket--not really even because of the plot but because it centered on jewelry. And because nothing was more evocative than a broken locket, the notion that putting two parts together would make whole another possibility, solve a mystery.
As I've aged, my love of lockets has expanded backwards through time to adore all the locket's incarnations: the religious relic, the painted miniature, the Victorian hair jewelry, lockets holding fragments of the sacred, the beloved, the lost. At times, the locket, usually protective or memorial, even became political, signifying secretly a patriot's support of a deposed ruler or as a diplomatic gesture to invite another ruler into an alliance. In 1526, one French duchess, Marguerite, sent two gold lockets containing pictures of her sons to King Henry VIIII, hoping to enlist his aid in ransoming them from Emperor Charles V. Please, see me, the locket seems to say, Hold me close to you as I am held close to others.
My current favorite piece here at Isadoras is a cobalt blue memorial locket with a tiny pearl cross on its front, ivy leaves symbolizing fidelity and marriage on its back. Inside is the most exquisite curl of fine, ash-blond hair and an inscription honoring one Mary Ann Gillett, dead at 67. Who was Mary Ann Gillett? To die at 67 in 1874 meant she lived an unusually long life for the time period, given its typical life expectancy was around 43 years. Yet clearly, she lived a life in which she was loved, in which her passing was grieved, in which someone wanted to keep her close. The memory of this woman I will never know fits in the palm of my hand, and I open it for as many customers as I can. It feels important to me to share it with others.
The antique locket is a gift that asks its receiver to honor what has come before, to keep a new possibility safe and loved and, if you like, secret.
