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This week's challenge was a fun one and something that is closely related to ideas of what I've been wanting to do for awhile now. Create a story that includes special jewelry pieces and then create the pieces to go with the story. I wanted to do something a little over the top this week and I think I might have succeeded. Enjoy!
The Story:
Ara spread out her hands, stretching and contracting them. She’d been sitting at her computer too long and her hands were going numb. Out of the corner of her eye she saw it again, the web, but knew if she tried to look at it, it would be gone again. So instead she just looked past the screen out the window at the city lights. How something could be so dark and lit up at the same time she would never understand and didn’t want to. New York City. It was not her city and it never would be. She’d been here a year, living in the cubicle called an apartment (which thankfully had a nice view) and she still didn’t know her way around. She doubted she ever would.
The buildings made her sense of direction completely off, cut off more like it. Cut off from nature, the trees, the sky, the sun even.
But being in The City, that was the dream wasn’t it? Every 20-something wanting to make it big. She’d been writing free-lance for the past 6 months and as glamorous as she liked to make it sound, the $400 a month it earned her was barely a drop in the bucket.
This latest article was for the blog World Wide Weavers - Spiders of the Interwebs. Lynyphiidae - Sheetweb Weaver Spiders brought in a whopping $50. The sad thing was that she had spent the last 3 hours staring at the computer screen or out the window and hadn’t written more than four words. At this rate she calculated, she would probably be earning less than minimum wage by the time she finished it. She sat staring out the window so long that the screen went its hibernation blackness, maybe it was time for her to go to sleep as well. It was 2:00 am after all and she had to be up in three hours for her morning barista shift.
The wonderful comfy rolling chair made it easy to glide over to bed, fall sideways, and just ease right in to sleep, she was practically there anyway.
Almost as soon as her eyes closed they opened again. Staring up at the ceiling as the Spider twirled down from its web towards her face. She’d named it Charlotte for fun, it seemed more magical and less frightening, except there was no talking pig here.
Ara kept her eyes opened and watched as Charlotte climbed back up the thread and continued her construction. Or destruction as Ara knew it to be. Spiders were the first defenders of nature. A corner sat untouched for too long quickly becomes inhabited by a spider, especially a corner in her home. She tried vacuuming a couple times a week and it didn’t seem to do any good. The fact that she wasn’t sure which ones were ‘real’ and which ones ‘imaginary’ didn’t help matters either. They were simply drawn to her. She was their queen.
The sound of her alarm soothed her awake, it was ‘jungle noises’ this morning. A harsh contrast from the city noises. Even the early morning city noises of the “concrete jungle” were a far cry from soothing.
A quick shower and light make-up was all she needed. She left her clothes at work, Ara couldn’t stand the smell of coffee permeating her home as well. Her rumpled clothes she fell asleep in would do just fine for the quick subway ride to work. She figured she looked better than the average homeless person, so that was probably good enough. No need to look in the mirror. What she saw wasn’t what the rest of the world saw, so it seemed kind of pointless. Every once in awhile she still caught a glimpse. Her friends had thought it strange to not have a mirror in a bathroom, so she put up a small one. The hardened web that formed the crown on her head was the most striking and borderline silly aspect of her ‘otherness’. She was glad no one could see it. Finding a job was hard enough and she doubted it would earn any extra tips from the groggy caffeine deprived patrons.
And also glad that she couldn’t actually feel it. The last time she had was about 30 seconds after she had stepped through the Door. So much felt like a distant memory or a hallucination. She knew it was safer to just stay on this side.
So last friday etsymetal folks were blogging about our inspirations. I wanted to take part, but was super super busy and felt my posting was a little lacking. So I snapped some photos of some of my favorites.
my favorite tree. the bark, the leaves, the flowers, the 'bean' pods - I love everything about this Catalpa!
their flowers
roses smell so good I want to eat them
and these are some of my favorite flowers - I don't know what kind they are! But we have TONS of them and they make me happy
Yesterday on my way in to my studio, I saw this lovely walking stick on the door. Walking sticks are one of the most fascinating insects to me as they hardly look like an insect at all! Even upclose and personal there isn't much to make out as far as a 'face'.
I'm sure this grandaddy long legs thought differently though, as they seemed to be having a staring contest - the entire day! They both just hung out, staring at each other, hardly moving for over 12 hours. I have no idea what they were doing, but they must have finished by this morning b/c neither was there. It was such a treat to get to see the walking stick though - and the day after the praying mantis! Late summer/early fall definitely brings in some lovely critters.
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