I had not bought myself a single thing in four years. This cost thirty-nine dollars and it undid something.
Six things a small leather bracelet did for a woman who is always the one organising everybody else.
Dad is in care up at Bendigo and I go twice a week. My eldest has the two little ones and no family up her end, so there is a fortnight in every school holidays that is mine to cover. Somewhere in between there is my own job, and the chemist run, and whoever needs picking up from the airport.
I am not complaining. I want to be clear about that, because women my age get accused of it the moment we mention any of this out loud. I am simply telling you what a Tuesday looks like.
What I noticed one night in April was that I had a list on the fridge with eleven things on it and not one of them was for me. Not a single one. And when I tried to think of the last thing I had bought that was purely mine, I could not get closer than a pair of walking shoes about four years ago, and I had needed those.
So I bought a bracelet. Under forty dollars, three little birds on a branch, ordered at eleven at night the way you do. It arrived on the Thursday with my own name on the parcel, and I sat in the car in the driveway and opened it before I went inside. Six things about what that turned out to be worth.
Thirty-nine dollars is small enough that you are allowed
This is the reason it happened at all, so I will start there. If it had been two hundred I would not have bought it. Not because I could not have, but because I would have found four better places for the money before I got to the checkout, and every woman reading this knows exactly what I mean. At $39.99 there is nothing to talk yourself out of. Delivery across Australia was free and there is thirty days to send it back if you change your mind, so the whole thing costs you no more than deciding to. That turns out to matter more than the bracelet.
First thing I have bought for myself since Mum got sick. It was forty dollars and I nearly cried.
It is the one thing in the day that is only mine
Everything else on me belongs to somebody. The phone is for whoever needs me, the car keys are for driving other people about, the watch is for being on time for them. This is a small picture of three birds sitting together on a branch, and it is mine, and every woman who has looked at it has instantly decided for herself who the three of them are. Mine are my two girls and me. Nobody has ever needed that explained, and I have never had to say it out loud, which suits me.
My daughter took one look and said "that's us three". She was right and I had not said a word.
It does not need one single thing from me
I have quite enough to look after. What I liked about this within about a week is that it asks for nothing. There is no polishing, no little cloth, no putting it somewhere safe. It is a double strand of soft leather and an aged silver charm, so it does not tarnish on you and it does not leave a grey-green mark on your wrist by the end of a warm day. It has been through the washing up, the garden and a great many hospital car parks and it has only gone a slightly deeper brown, which suits it.
No fuss, no polishing, no green wrist. I have worn it every day since October.
On before six, and it gets in the way of nothing I do
I am up at ten to six most days and out the door with a travel mug. Anything fiddly at that hour does not get worn, which is how most of my jewellery ended up not being worn. This goes on in about a second, one-handed, because it has a proper lobster clasp rather than a knot you are meant to tie with your teeth. The extender chain gives three or four links of adjustment, so it fits a small wrist or a swollen one. And it weighs close to nothing, so it does not slide about while I am driving or knock on the desk all day.
Fastens in seconds on my own, and it actually fits my small wrist.
It goes with the four things I actually wear
I am not somebody with a wardrobe. There is a work shirt, two cardigans and whatever is clean, and that is the honest state of it. Brown leather and aged silver goes with all of it. It does not fight my wedding band, it does not argue with a watch, and it looks the same standing in a nursing home corridor as it does at my sister's for lunch. That means there is never a morning where I have to decide anything about it, which at ten to six is the whole point.
I wear it with my gold and my silver both, which nothing else of mine manages.
Somebody took hold of my wrist and asked about it
This is the one I did not see coming. A woman at the desk in Bendigo, who has watched me sign that visitors book twice a week for two years, reached over and turned my wrist to look at the birds and asked what they were. We talked for about four minutes. Four minutes about me, which I could not tell you the last time happened. That is not what a bracelet is for and I know it. But it gets asked about, because there is something to ask about, and if you have spent a few years being the one who does the asking, you may find you have missed it more than you thought.
Three people have asked me about it. Nothing else I own has ever been asked about.
What I thought forty dollars would buy, against what it did
I ordered it at eleven at night without expecting much, which is probably why it landed the way it did.
One more thing before the price
It has held up better than I expected, which for forty dollars I did not take for granted. The leather has darkened where it sits against my wrist, the way a good belt does, and the aged silver has settled rather than dulled. Keep it out of the shower and the pool, the way you would with anything leather, and it simply carries on. Mine has been on since April through a great deal of driving and a great many kitchen sinks.
About the price
It is $39.99, down from $79.99. I have gone on about that number twice already and I will do it once more, because I think it is the whole reason this worked. There is a sort of woman, and I am one of them, who will not spend two hundred dollars on herself and will find a perfectly good reason every single time. Forty dollars slips under that. It is small enough that the guilt cannot get hold of it.
Cute Home say the sale pricing comes from selling direct with no middleman taking a cut. That is their arithmetic. Mine is that it is the first thing in four years I have bought that was not for somebody else, and it has been on my wrist every day since.
If you have a list on the fridge with eleven things on it and none of them are yours, this is a very small place to start. It arrives boxed, it goes on in a second, and it is the one thing in the day that is only yours.
— Nancy
Vintage Bird Rope Bracelet
- Three-bird charm in a vintage silver tone, read your own way
- Soft double leather cord that asks nothing of you
- Light enough that you forget you have it on
- Lobster clasp with extender chain, fastens one-handed
- Suits gold and silver both, so it goes with everything you own
- Arrives boxed with a tag, ready to give or to keep
- Free Australia-wide delivery · 30-day money back · Afterpay available
About the writer. Nancy Brooks lives in Melbourne, VIC. She writes occasionally about the small things she has actually kept using. She is not affiliated with Cute Home beyond being a customer.
This page is an advertisement for Cute Home. Nancy's letter is shared with her permission. Cute Home · An Australian start-up from Melbourne · Free Australia-wide delivery · 30-day money back guarantee.