It seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to me: “Why do you wear that, Geep?” (Geep is my grandfather name; I happen to think it suits me well.) Gav was pointing at the copper bracelet on my right wrist.
I liked Gav’s opening conversational gambit. When you’re hanging with eight grandchildren at the beach, you don’t get many opportunities for one-on-one time. This looked like it just might be that moment.
I started and stopped. How does one explain arthritis and the beneficial properties of trace minerals to a five-year old? I was in over my head. “It makes me feel better,” I said.
“Don’t you feel good?” Gav asked.
“Well, yes, I feel fine, but maybe it’s because I wear this bracelet.”
“Do I need a bracelet?”
“Do you feel OK?”
“Yeah.”
“Then no.”
“But you’re wearing one…”
I sensed I would need to go deeper, but just how deep?
“Well, when you get older, sometimes your joints get a little stiff…”
“What’s a joint?” Another good question, one that had some serious inter-generational potential.
I resisted the obvious answer and started in on a more anatomical explanation. “It’s an articulation point between two bones…”
Gav’s a curious little guy but he looked at me like I was speaking Greek. I probably was so I changed course. “I guess I wear it because I like it. It’s just for decoration.”
“My dad doesn’t wear a bracelet but my mom does.”
Uh-oh. This conversation was starting to go down the wrong path. I wasn’t prepared to talk gender paraphernalia with a five-year old. I veered left.
“So, Gav: what’s your favorite thing about the beach?”
‘Playing with my cousins and digging holes. But why do you clean your bracelet with sand?”
Gav doesn’t miss a trick. He had watched me scouring my copper bracelet, making it shine like new—at least for a few minutes.
“Oh. Well, copper oxidizes and sand can make it shiny again.”
“What’s oxen-daisy mean?”
“Oxidation. It happens when oxygen—that’s a chemical in the air—interacts with a mineral like the copper in my bracelet and causes it…” I stopped. Gav was staring at me again. He had no idea what I was talking about and to be honest, neither did I. “It just means something like rust, I guess.”
Gav pondered that for a moment. “My mom’s bracelets don’t get rusty. Why do you like to wear a rusty bracelet?”
I had to admit he had me there. I veered right.
“Did you see any dolphins this morning?” I asked.
“No. Where did you buy that rusty bracelet?”
Curious and tenacious. “I’ve had it for a long time. Maybe twenty-five years.” I wondered what twenty-five years meant to someone who’s only five. “Actually, I had one for a long time, but it broke, so I had to get a new one.”
“But why is it rusty already?”
“It’s not really rust, Gav. It’s oxidiza…” We seemed to be in one of those continuous loops. Gav was looking at me, waiting. I was failing miserably at this one-on-one thing, or flailing, maybe both.
“So here’s the deal,” I said. “I like my bracelet. I think it looks nice and it makes me feel younger.” Suddenly, I realized this last explanation probably had a subliminal thing to do with an impending birthday. A BIG birthday; a REALLY BIG birthday. “Do you like my bracelet?”
Gav looked at me and nodded. “It’s nice. Can we go swimming now?”
Later that afternoon, my wife asked me, “What were you and Gavin talking about down by the water? It looked very serious.”
I glanced down at my rusty bracelet. “Nothing much,” I said. “We were just talking.”
I’ll be right back.
Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy magazine. “A Place to Stand,” a book of photographs and essays about Landon School, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015. A collection of his essays titled “Musing Right Along” was published in May 2017; a second volume of Musings entitled “I’ll Be Right Back” will be released in June 2018. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com.
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