There is something about opening a small velvet pouch that makes the whole world still. Today my freshwater pearls arrived from the supplier — each one slightly different, like syllables in a sentence only the sea could write.
I spent two hours at my desk just sorting them. Not by size. Not by colour. By feeling. Some of them feel like mornings. Some like the last paragraph of a very good book. I do not know how to explain this to anyone who hasn't held a handful of pearls in afternoon light, so I usually don't try.
I am making five rings from this batch. One already has a name. I am keeping the rest quiet until they're ready.
— vivian