My brain on a ring

I imagine many of you can guess that I spend a lot of time dealing intensely with the limits of reality–medical realities, scientific realities, personal realities. And I do. But also? I also deal in magic.

Every single day since Esmé was born I have lived in a world filled with all kinds of magic that I cannot explain. The complex magic that has kept Esmé safe through the impossible. The magic that helps me understand my daughter. The magic that brings the right people into our life at just the right time.

The magic that lands a bizarrely special ring on my finger.

About a year ago I bought a ring in New York City while visiting my friend Mieke. It was a gift to myself for completing my doctorate. I suppose it was sort of a silly little thing, but it felt meaningful.

At the time we were in the middle of trying to sort out why Esmé would periodically hold her breath to the point of turning blue and passing out, often triggering a seizure (I have described this phenomenon humorously here and less humorously here). For a long time we were told these breath-holding events would just go away, but when they didn’t Esmé’s doctors started to become concerned that there was something happening with Esmé’s heart during these events. So we were sent to a cardiologist who specializes in autonomic function. His job was to investigate the neurological function of Esmé’s heart…essentially, whether when Esmé’s brain was running her heart as poorly as it was her breathing during these events.

This had the effect of my thinking an awful lot about brains: Thinking about the things the brain does to run our body, and how, in Esmé’s case, her brain works differently enough to alter so much of her body’s function. Thinking about how, as an academic, I’d thought I had spent a good part of my life defining myself by my brain, but I had not honored these basic functions my own brain does pretty seamlessly. Thinking about how my daughter might someday view her own brain and mine–and how I’d want her to understand the beautiful things I see in the different ways her mind works.

When I saw this little ring in the jewelry store–a very small brass ring with a brain on it, I was immediately drawn to it. The brain made me think of my academic work–I chapter of my life that had just closed, likely for good. It also brought to mind the thought of Esmé’s heart beating away, driven in such a surprising way by her brain. The two thoughts sang together, reminding me I had finished that project not really despite the chaos Esmé’s brain and body…but that, in a way, it was that chaos that drove me so hard to finish.

So, I plucked the little ring out of the display and slid it onto the pinky of my right hand. And it fit just about perfectly, a bit snug in the warm weather, so I made it mine.

I wore the ring every day–even though it mysteriously stained my finger greenish-black now and then. The stain on my finger  had the effect of further highlighting it as an amusing counter point next to the only piece of real grown-up jewelry I own: a diamond ring I wear on the ring finger of my right hand–in honor of the line of women that I come from.

This ring, too, is a a bit of an enchanted thing…

My diamond had belonged to my great-grandmother, gifted to her on the occasion of her 40th wedding anniversary by her husband, a tall, handsome, strong farmer who had saved and saved to give the love of his life this beautiful shining thing. The diamond passed to my great-grandmother’s only daughter, my grandmother, to her only daughter, my mother. My mother wore it for years, and then offered it to me, her only biological daughter, when I was in my mid twenties. But, at the time, honestly, I didn’t feel worthy of it…

Then when Esmé was a newborn my mom offered it to me again, and I said yes…It seemed like the right thing, finally. Esmé had, by that time, come so close to dying…and motherhood was proving to be something that I needed a lot of courage to face. I felt comforted by this sign of the power of the women who came before me–women who beat some pretty amazing odds: my great-grandmother who was born prematurely at three or four pounds in the early 1900’s and incubated in the household oven, my grandmother who had rheumatic fever as a girl and multiple open-heart surgeries as an adult, and my own mother who I have written about a few times before. I was pretty certain that carrying a memory of their power with me would help me to be the mother Esmé needed. And it does help me. Every time I look at it I feel connected to the strength and love and determination of these women.

Anyway, all of this to say that something felt really important about that funny little poetic brass brain sitting next to that shiningly familiar symbol of love and history and beauty. The juxtaposition perfectly suited my sense of humor and the absurd ways I find meaning. And it all made me rather certain that this little brain ring was pretty darn important for some reason.

So, when I lost the brain ring last summer, I was terribly disappointed.

I turned the house upside down looking for it. I searched for it everywhere. And then, when I couldn’t find it, I figured that was probably fate too–a sign that maybe the thing wasn’t nearly as important as I thought. I counted my blessings that I’d not lost the other ring as well…because I could always replace the brain ring.

But I didn’t replace the brain…it didn’t seem right.

Then several weeks later I was having a particularly awful day (that’s another story). On that bad day I was in the driver’s seat of my car, teary-eyed, talking to my mother when reached into my purse for a tissue. As I dug around, I felt something…a tiny thin band of metal, and a bump. It took me a minute to register: It was my missing brain ring. Mom said, “Oh, that is a good sign!” The little thing cheered me up quite a bit…that seemed like enough. But just a few minutes later I received an email from a prolific author whose work I adore, with praise about my writing.

Nice coincidence right? It certainly made my day.

I forgot about it until months later, in December, I was heading out for my trip to Philadelphia for The Cute Syndrome Foundation SCN8A Conference, and I realized my ring was missing again. But I was too rushed to look for it as I headed off to the airport.That night I unpacked in Philadelphia, lifting the folded stacks of clothing from my suitcase and placing them into the dresser drawers. I must have absentmindedly removed a small item from the top of the folded pile when I changed for bed, because the next day as I was dressing for the conference, I opened the drawer, and my brain ring was sitting on top of the shirt I was planning to wear.

It was as if someone had set it there.

Of course, it must have slipped off as I was packing (shoving far too many things into my suitcase, no doubt) and lodged between two articles of clothing, just waiting to be discovered…

Still, that day, as the conference progressed so wonderfully, it seemed again as if the ring was a sign of the amazing things to come out of that day (if you haven’t read about the conference, check out this post).

Since December I have caught the ring almost slipping off a couple of times, once just last week, in fact…And I wondered what beautiful things might happen if I pretended not to notice and just let it go. But that, no doubt, isn’t how the magic of the thing works. I’d have to not know.

Perhaps soon I will loose it again and see what might be highlighted by its rediscovery. Perhaps not.

It truly doesn’t matter, because that isn’t the point at all. The ring is a metaphor…a reminder to see the magic in the work we do, the people we care for, the unforeseen turns our life takes. It is a reminder to accept and embrace these things as they change, as they become something different.

Sometimes this means leaving things behind, at times by choice, and at times because they get lost along the way.

And sometimes we may think we’ve lost something when we haven’t lost it at all. Sometimes we’ve carried it with us everywhere we’ve gone, tucked away in the darkness, just waiting to be brought back out into the light.