Moon and stars

One thing about being old is that every once in a while you’ll think of some trivial thing that you haven’t thought of in forever, something that existed or a way people used to do a thing, something that is S-O-O-O different from how things are now that you laugh to yourself and think, “If I told a young person that that’s how this thing was back then, they wouldn’t believe me.”

And usually, that thought’s the end of that, because it really isn’t important and there’s really no reason to mention it to anyone. But I always want to anyway, so here’s one: Tonight I went out for a walk when sunset was just an orange glow along the horizon and just above it in the cloudless sky was the

moon and a star (Venus actually, I’m sure), but I thought “moon and star” because it reminded me of one of those things I hadn’t thought of in years . . .

In the early 70’s when I was in my early 20’s, I was walking along the drag among the artists and craftspeople, stopping here and there to admire their work, and some earrings caught my eye. They were very tiny gold studs, a pair of crescent moons and next to them, a pair of stars.

And I asked the jewelry maker, “Could I buy one moon and one star?” At first she said no. What would she do with the mismatched leftovers? No one would want them.

Because – this is the part no  one under the age of about 60 would believe – back then, people only wore two earrings that were the same, one in each ear. And those people were always women (unless you were a pirate, I guess).

Anyway, I finally talked her into it. I couldn’t afford to buy them both. They were gold! She decided that she could make one more star and one more moon and have her two matching pairs to sell again.

So I put them in my ears and pretty much kept them there except for an occasional alcohol rinse for the next ten years or so.

Now what makes it really something that most people younger than I am would find hard to believe is the way other people reacted to them. I’d be talking to someone I’d just met and at some point, nine time out of ten, they’d just stop talking and stare . . . And I’d stare back, puzzled (because I always forgot) . . . until they said, in a shocked tone, “Your earrings. They’re not the same. . .”

Well, yes, that was exactly the point, besides the fact that a gold star and a gold moon is pretty. One major point of being a hippy was to break rules that made no sense whenever possible.

For some of those rules, it was very, very important to break them, like a rule that says you must support a war against people on the other side of the world who pose no threat to you or a rule that says you must hate and fear gay people.

But some of the rules were just silly, like only women (and male pirates?) can wear earrings and if you are female you have to wear two and only two earrings, one in each ear and they must be the same.

Of course, men who had hair half way down their back or in braids or a ponytail weren’t going to abide by a dumb rule that said only pirate men could wear earrings, so led by gay guys (who were themselves increasingly breaking the rule that made no sense about hiding who they were in the closet), men started wearing one earring. Having only one made it masculine, you see. And I heard, though I had no idea if this was true or if true, if it was rigidly enforced, that which ear your one earring was in announced whether or not you were gay or straight.

And eventually, there were women and men who wore earrings that didn’t match and more than one in an ear, and nose rings and eyebrow rings and various other similar things and then there came the tattoos, and it’s been like that for so long that that’s why I say, you might have to be over 60 to remember a time when a person would find a woman wearing earrings that didn’t match so shocking that it would leave them speechless, at least for a few moments.

As I said, I wore the moon in one ear and the star in the other for many years and it felt like part of my identity in the way I’m sure many people feel about their tattoos today.

Terry, who later became the father of my child, came across a single earring that had a star inside a moon and he wore that for a long time. So we matched, in a way.

Seeing the moon and “star” tonight looking so beautiful inspired me to go looking for the earrings and I found them!

I’m not sure the other one is Terry’s. I remember his as being simpler, more like mine. I think I bought this one because it reminded me of him and I was feeling sentimental. But that’s the other thing about being old. Your memory is probably not as great as it once was, but more to the point you’ve had longer to be convinced that we all, at every age, don’t remember things as well as we think we do, especially about things that happened a long time ago.

So that’s my story about something that’s really of no importance except to remind us how much things change and no one really notices or thinks of it once the change is done. Except those of us who were there, and once in a while are reminded, “Can you believe that it used to be that . . .?”

Well, that was a lot of words about something of no importance, really, which is why I don’t usually bother to write these, “I just remembered how it used to be and it seems so weird now . . .” thoughts down. In the meantime, my moon and star are back in my ears as I write and maybe I’ll go back to wearing them all the time.