Sometime after my mother passed away and I had been involved in both jewelry and writing careers, it occurred to me that all of the precious keepsakes in my jewelry box reveal part of my history: not just material possessions but sparkling memories that are intricately linked to all of my most significant events. Each piece has it’s own moment in time and when strung together like pearls, all of them began to tell the story of my life.

Unlike fashion which is fleeting, jewelry holds tremendous sentimental value and is enduring in the fact that it can tell multi-generational tales and can bring together the intimate and heartfelt pieces that means something different to each woman. In my memoir, I connect my past and my present from my mother’s unconventional engagement watch, my grandmothers art deco bracelet, and my great grandmother’s brooch which was handed down and changed through four generations of the maternal side of my family (all which continues to represent the women I keep so close to my heart.)

Whenever I begin to explain the book and my different memories, from the sparkle of new relationships to the meltdown of breakups, my mom’s transformation from Jackie O Pearls to wearing my love beads after she and my dad got divorced in the seventies as well as the pieces I inherited when each of them passed away-when I was in my thirties, I find that women everywhere can relate to the universal themes of love, laughter, loss and the strength we gain along the way. And ,each woman I speak to about the book begins to relate a story from their own jewelry box, stored with their own keepsakes and mementos. I hope you do–this is what the book is all about.

Photography by Bart Gorin