One daughter in Perth, one in Brisbane, and the three of us on my wrist every day of the week.
Six things a small leather bracelet has done for a mother who used to ring her girls rather more often than either of them needed.
I will start with the thing my daughters would tell you if you asked them, which is that their mother rings too much. Kate is in Perth, which is three hours behind us in the summer, and Sarah is in Brisbane with the two little ones. Between the pair of them I had got into the habit of three or four messages a day, and I knew perfectly well it was more for me than for them.
It is not that anything was wrong. It was only that they had both gone, within about eighteen months of each other, and the house had got very quiet, and reaching for the phone was the easiest way of putting my hand on them.
I bought the bracelet late one night for no reason at all. Under forty dollars, three little birds on a branch, and I had half forgotten about it by the morning. Then a few weeks in I was standing at the kettle and I looked down at it and thought, without deciding to, that is the three of us. I had not told myself that. It had simply arrived.
I ring them on Sundays now, mostly, and they ring me. Six things about a bracelet that turned out to be doing more than I bought it for.
I had decided who the three birds were before I noticed I had
This is the part I would not have believed if somebody had told me. It is a small picture of three birds sitting together on a branch, and every woman who has looked at it has instantly decided for herself who the three of them are. Mine were Kate, Sarah and me, and I did not choose that, I just found I had already thought it. My neighbour saw her three boys. My sister saw us and our mother. Nobody has ever needed it explained to them, which is a rare thing in jewellery and the reason this one gets asked about.
My daughter rang and said "that's us three, isn't it". I had never said a word about it.
It goes on before the kettle and it is still on at Sunday night
It weighs close to nothing. That sounds like a small mercy and it is the whole reason it works, because anything you have to take off is a thing you will eventually stop putting on. This went on one morning in autumn and it has been part of getting up ever since, the way glasses are. I stopped noticing it by the second day. It does not slide down my forearm when I am on the computer and it does not knock on the desk, so there is never a moment in the day when it asks anything of me.
So light I forget it is on. It goes on with my glasses and comes off at the shower.
Leather stays warm on your wrist, which matters more than I expected
The band is a double strand of soft brown leather rather than a chain, and it is warm against your skin instead of going cold every time you bring your hands in. In a quiet house in July that is a nicer thing than I know how to explain. It is silent, too. It does not clink on the table when I eat and it does not catch on a jumper sleeve, and there is no grey-green mark on my wrist at the end of a warm day, which is more than I can say for a good many bracelets I have owned.
Warm, quiet, and no green wrist. I have worn it every day since October.
It is in every photograph I send them
Sarah asked me for more photos of myself, which mothers of adult daughters will understand is not a request you get twice. So I send them, and I noticed going back through my phone that the same three birds are in nearly all of them. That was not deliberate. It is simply that brown leather and aged silver goes with everything I own, so I never have to think about whether it suits what I have on. It does not fight my gold rings, it does not argue with a watch, and it looks equally right with a linen shirt in February or a cardigan in July.
I wear it with my gold and my silver both, which nothing else of mine manages.
I fasten it myself, every morning, in about a second
There is nobody here in the mornings to do up a clasp for me, and I have small wrists, so most bracelets have been a losing proposition for years. This one has a proper lobster clasp on a short extender chain. It fastens one-handed, first go, and the chain gives three or four links of adjustment so you can wear it snug or let it sit loose on a warm day. No knots, no teeth, no going to find somebody. That is a very small freedom and I would not want to be without it now.
Fastens in seconds on my own, and it actually fits my small wrist.
All three of us wear the same three birds now
I sent one to Perth and one to Brisbane at Christmas. They arrived boxed on tissue with a little tag, so there was nothing for me to do but write on it and put it in the post, and delivery across the country cost me nothing. Kate rang the evening hers turned up. She had worked out what it was before I said anything, which I had rather hoped she would. Three thousand kilometres is three thousand kilometres and a bracelet does not change that. But we are all wearing the same three birds, and on a Sunday when I am waiting for the phone to go, I find that I like it.
Bought three so my girls and I match. My eldest rang me the day hers arrived.
What I was hoping for, against what it turned out to be
I bought it for under forty dollars at eleven at night, so I was not hoping for a great deal.
One more thing before the price
It gets better with wearing, which I did not expect. The leather has gone a slightly deeper brown 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 autumn and it looks more like mine than it did the day it came.
About the price
It is $39.99, down from $79.99, and I have thought about that number rather more than it deserves. What I keep landing on is that the price is the reason all three of us have one. At two hundred dollars it would have been a present I gave once, to one of them, and made a fuss about. At under forty it was simply a thing I could do for both my girls in the same week, and post across the country for nothing.
Cute Home say the sale pricing comes from selling direct with no middleman taking a cut. That is their arithmetic. Mine is that it has been on my wrist every day since autumn, there are two more like it in two other states, and I would put the whole lot at rather more than a hundred and twenty dollars' worth.
If your people are further away than you would like them to be, this is the small thing I would put on your wrist. You will decide who the three of them are without anybody telling you.
— Nancy
Vintage Bird Rope Bracelet
- Three-bird charm in a vintage silver tone, read your own way
- Soft double leather cord, warm and silent on the wrist
- 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 post straight on
- 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.