The stones I cannot name

I want to be honest with you from the start: I cannot tell you the name of most of the stones I use. I do not know which is jasper and which is flint, which was made by a volcano and which by a river over a very long time. When someone asks, I usually smile and say I am not sure.

For a while this embarrassed me. Surely a person who makes jewelry should know these things. I bought a book once, a heavy one, full of charts and Latin. It is still on the shelf, mostly unread.

But then I remember why I started. I picked the first pebble up because it felt good in my hand and the colour pleased me. That was the whole of it. The not-knowing is part of the gift — it lets me meet each stone as itself, and not as a category.

I will learn, slowly, over time. But I will not rush toward that day, and I will not let it become the point. For now I am allowing myself the first step, and only the first step. Simple, and a little unsteady — and gathered, always, by hand.