Iron Horse.

A tale of trains, a railroad bridge, a temple of columns underneath that bridge, and a treasure unearthed on the bank of the small river traversed by that bridge...

Spent a recent afternoon with my son, exploring a debris-strewn stretch of river in search of frogs and turtles. We came to a small railroad bridge and followed the well-worn path from the tracks down to a secluded spot underneath the bridge, loud with graffiti and littered with shards of broken glass.

I looked across the river, at a solid-looking expanse of green duckweed from which several massive concrete columns rose to support the train bridge overhead. The series of arches and doorways formed by the columns and the long paths of light between them suggested an ancient temple. The effect was enhanced by beautiful and intriguing surface designs drawn and painted on the columns, 

more like hieroglyphics than graffiti.

I stood there and took this all in, transported by the unexpected sacredness of the place, and then took a couple pictures. Something at my feet caught my eye - something burnished and embedded in the compacted soil at the river's edge. I bent to pick up whatever was beckoning here, it was metal - copper I guessed from the warm tone - more or less round and very flat with a tiny eye-shaped hole on its edge. Delighted at the thought of stringing and wearing this small treasure (I am such a jewelry person!), I inspected it more closely. Though perfectly smooth, the surface of both sides bore shadowy images -what were they?

Then it hit me - this was a penny. 

It had been put on the track above, run over by a train and flattened. But it had escaped. As I ran this narrative in my head, I stopped and looked up and sure enough there was blue sky with drifting clouds alternating with track. So, my treasure had fallen through the spaces and languished here on the riverbank for how long? Years? Decades? The patina was aged-looking... and now I could just make out the slightly distorted profile of Lincoln on one side and the series of upright columns (echoing what I was looking at here in front of me) of the Lincoln Memorial on the other side. 

Later, at home with my treasure, I resisted the impulse to embellish it - I am a jewelry artisan, after all -and simply added a silver jump ring and a dark patina-ed ball chain. 

I slipped it over my head, thinking: LUCKY.

Hair.

Hair is powerfully symbolic. 


Humans spend a lot of time on hair. Our hair - its length, style, and color, or our lack of hair - is a highly visible message to the world about how we see our self and how we wish to be perceived. 


Hair is both highly personal and very public. Folklore attributes hair with a variety of magical powers, even Biblical stories relate this ancient belief - remember the tragic story of Samson and Delilah? 


Horses are among the very few animals who have hair that is much like our own hair, and perhaps that is one reason many of us feel so connected to horses. We see a bit of ourselves in them, hair framing their faces much as our hair does...


As an artisan jeweler working in the realm of horses, I work with a fair amount of horse hair, both in custom work and in work of my own inspiration. I have washed, sorted, braided, and even hand-dyed horse hair. I make necklaces and bracelets with lengths of braids, and I make tassels and other ornamental objects with tufts of unbraided hair. Most of this work is memorial in nature, adornments designed to honor the memory of horses who have left this world. Occasionally I have the pleasure to make something with hair from a horse who is still here, and even better I have had the lovely opportunity to make something with hair from a horse (or a mule, I'm delighted to add) who is around and who I know personally.


There is a history of sentimental and memorial adornments made with human hair, too. Examples exist in museum collections of nineteenth and early twentieth century gentlemen's watch fobs, embellished with lovingly woven locks of hair, presumably as a symbol of love and betrothal. Lockets were often filled with wisps of hair from a lover far away to keep them close, or from a baby or child as a memento of a life lost or at least of a childhood gone by.


Hair comes to mind for other reasons, too. In these days of rampant cancers, most of us know someone who has endured chemo or radiation-induced hair loss. It seems a distressingly common thing. One can hardly go out to a large public place without noting women wearing scarfs or other sorts of head coverings over obviously bare heads. Some do it with panache, others are clearly self-conscious. Wigs are even harder to wear convincingly, so bolder souls throw all pretense to the wind and opt for an outrageous color or style. And some venture out with their bald heads for all to see, challenging themselves and everyone else to respond honestly and authentically. A bald head can not be ignored. It will not go quietly away to let us pretend cancer isn't ripping apart the fabric of many, many lives. 


Once again, hair, and the lack of it, is highly symbolic. It can be the symbol of hope and recovery, when hair grows back after successful treatment... or its loss can be one of a series of heart-breaking losses that precede the final loss - of a life.


I have mentioned my dear friend who is living with advanced breast cancer. She is on my mind as I think about hair because she recently endured full-head radiation that has left her with no hair. She was told it won't grow back. Which, damn it, is really a moot point: she has also been told her time is short. In a fit of sorrow and regret, I think maybe I should have made something beautiful with some of her hair before it was gone... something to remember her by. Then I smile a little and think of all the ways she has been a dear friend, all the ways she has filled me with her kindness, compassion, humor and creativity. And I know that hair is not the thing I will carry in my heart in memory of her when she leaves this world. 


Hair is very symbolic, but the symbol is not the thing...