The Body as Ecotone - Part 3 - Alison Stine

The Earrings - Alison Stine
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The earrings are small, hand-beaten gold disks. They look like they were shaped by tiny thumbs. I bought them in London, when I was twenty years old. They were displayed in an aquarium, the tiny jewelry hung from tiny driftwood branches. They cost forty pounds, which was a lot, especially for a twenty year-old girl without pierced ears. I think the store was called Bloomsbury, but the black velvet drawstring bag they came in is so old, the name has worn away.

The name has worn away from me touching it, opening the bag, and dumping the earrings into my hands, and touching them, as I do every few months, every few days, lately.

They are the only pair of earrings I own or have ever owned.

Because I don’t have my ears pierced.

Because I am deaf in one ear.

Because of a rare birth defect which is often much worse.

I have no other piercings. I have no tattoos. I often dye my hair, but it’s usually mistaken for my natural color. I am plain and bare as a plain tree, and I want that to change.

This year for my birthday—January25th—I am getting my ears pierced.

I am getting my ears pierced to prove to myself that I can change, that I can change my body, that I am not too old. I want to change in preparation for a larger change: I am getting my hearing fixed, or at least, I am going to see a doctor to see if it can be fixed.

I’m afraid of the gun, and I’m afraid of the needle, and I’m very, very afraid of the doctor, and what he might say, and how it might be no.

The gold earrings are one of the greatest gifts I have given myself—although most would say I have not gotten any good out of them, as I have never worn them. But buying them, spending so much money to buy them, was a sign to myself. Hang on to myself.

One day you will be strong enough to change.
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