When I was working I found it difficult to devote much time to myself and my joys; I was too drained to come home after a day of work, do what I had to do for my family and around the house to spend much time “creating.” At this time my concentration has been on writing, which is something I finally gave myself the right and the time to return to, and I am loving it.

But I seem to go in cycles because I need to focus. I loved to knit and to sew. I use the past tense because I haven’t made anything in quite a while. I wrote and designed ¼ million greeting cards and did all the legal work myself. They were all over the country; that’s another story. I started making jewelry when I was still working in the NYC school system. Just like most of what I do, I am basically self-taught.

I made pieces with vintage beads, crystals, glass, pearls. I would wear a piece, put another on my assistant, we’d walk around the school building and the pieces would be bought off our necks. People gave me handfuls of broken necklaces and unstrung beads, and I would recreate the piece as my mind saw it should be, adding beads, changing patterns and clasps. The jewelry make-over. All this will be another story.

This will introduce you to what I have been doing for a few years. I will repost the story behind the story and fill a photo album with what I have made. Rebuilt charm bracelets made with vintage and antique charms. Charms of enamel. Mechanical charms that move, open and close, and reveal. The world of charms is an amazing world of miniatures. It is another form of my poetry except my words are silver glyphs.

I will revisit a former piece and explain how it came to be.

Charmed, I’m Sure

This piece is dedicated to Joan Munkacsi, who knows more about vintage charms than anyone, who helped write the book on charms and charm bracelets, who probably has the biggest collection on earth, who is the leader of the vintage charm and charm bracelet group on ebay, who is one of the most wonderful people on earth, and who shouldn’t be in a fight with cancer. I am jingling my charm bracelets for you, Joan, because like Tinkerbell, strength comes from believing it’s all going to be ok.

One day in the early 1950’s, my parents took me on a subway ride to the Bronx (one of the 5 “boroughs of New York City: Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan are the five boroughs and are largely residential.”) Part of the train ride is elevated and it is a kick for a young child to kneel backwards in her seat and look out the window.

We were going to visit my aunt Ina, my mother’s sister. At that time she had a daughter and a son. Neither of them were home when we were there. My aunt and her family lived in a development called Parkchester, which, like Stuyvesant Town, where I grew up in lower Manhattan, was a post WWII development. Apartments filled quickly in these huge middle class developments as the vets needed a home after the war. These inclusive communities were owned by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. They looked very much the same;

There was lots of grass around the 100 or so buildings, walks, flowers in the spring, and an “oval” with fountains to cool off around in the summer. Hundreds of kids all backgrounds hung out together in and around the many playgrounds. But Parkchester had an interesting intriguing extra; statues of the WPA chubby ilk, hanging off the corners of many of the buildings. They were mostly 11 story, reddish pink buildings with pink terracotta-ish figures hanging off in 50’s gargoyle fashion.

So now you can see me approaching my aunt Ina’s house. I am with my parents, maybe 6 years old, and descending from the stairs of the elevated train, walking on a warm spring day under trees.

As a child has a limited sense of time and sequence, and as memory sometimes rewrites itself, I will do the best I can to describe this life changing event.

My aunt approached me in slow motion with her hands outstretched, offering me a gift. Most of the things I received as a child were hand-me-downs from older cousins. Here was the first I could recall. From my cousin, Barbara: a clear plastic purse that could snap securely shut. In it were several plastic charms. One was a frankfurter in a bun. Perfectly painted and a miniature of what we would eat on Sundays at Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, on the boardwalk. I don’t remember the other plastic charms. I only remember the silver bracelet. A charm bracelet. I think there were 4 charms but I only recall two: a little scissors that opened and closed, and a disc in a frame, it’s called a “spinner,” that had code-like writing on the front and back. It sat in the frame securely enough to be held at two points so when blown on it would spin and while doing so the code was read by the mind’s need for gestalt: I LOVE YOU.

If you are a girl I am sure you can identify with this. If you are a boy, just think of that bracelet as a baseball card collection. Close your eyes and feel the return to the point in your childhood among a myriad of infinite points. Remember the best thing you ever got. How your heart pounded in excitement and maybe even fear. You didn’t know what to do with yourself. You knew you had a treasure.

I acquired a few treasures over my childhood and I kept them safe. I inherited my cousin Pamela’s doll house. It sat on the window sill in my room which I was soon to share with my newborn sister. It was made of painted aluminum; the façade faced out to the endless thousands of apartment windows looking back at mine. I could enter the house and live in it, between its little walls, in its little draperied rooms. It came with 2 miniature candlesticks and a teensy round, squat vessel that had a lid. Heaven! The lid came off, snapped back on.

I had a tiny cactus plant growing on my window sill near the doll house. I mean tiny. The pot was maybe an inch tall and the plant was small and spiny, and must have been happy as it shot up a thin prickly shoot.

I began a comic book and Mad Magazine collection; as they accrued—Little LuLu, Richie Rich,
Classic Comics, and of course my beloved Archies—Betty and Veronica, Jughead, they found a home under my bed in a carton. I loved this stuff. It wasn’t much but it meant a lot to me. It helped me survive a pretty gray colored childhood. My stuff was my escape.

But now I must digress to a painful topic. One day I came home from school and the bracelet was gone. One day I came home from school and the doll house and the little snap-shut vessel were gone. One day I came home from school and the cactus with the funny shoot was gone.

One day I came home from school and the box was gone. No more Alfred E. Newman, or my best friends, Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and Reggie. Nope. They left and took Little LuLu and Tubby with them.

We had a fire! Everything was destroyed. It was started by a careless match from my father’s cigars. It obliterated the apartment and everything in it. I was no longer a child and I was no longer safe. I was forever scarred by soot and smoke.

But I am lying.

There was no fire. There was not a smudge of soot. There was my mother. She felt I didn’t need these things anymore. The cactus was “ugly.” She said she gave everything including my comics to The Salvation Army. They could never save anyone the way they saved me. So I will pull a few words from the previous paragraph: I was no longer a child and I was no longer safe. I was forever scarred.

Years later as an adult, I went into every antique store I could, looking for my bracelet. I even took a job in a place that sold antique and vintage jewelry after my regular job, in hopes that someone would bring my bracelet in. Or it would be waiting for me in a showcase or a drawer. Well, you know, we all have fantasies.

You are probably thinking about how I reacted. I was numb and accepted what I was told. Like a good daughter. I didn’t confront my mother but I did ask her to explain her behavior.

Her response was, “my mother did it to me.”

It was time to take action. In January 2005, so many years later, I was a fairly new member of ebay and was finding my way around as I am here. I did a search for vintage charms; up they came! Hundreds, thousands of charms. And there were the scissors! And the I LOVE YOU spinner! They were there and more!

I decided it was time to let it all go and rewrite my own bracelet. Every bracelet is a poem, some dramatic, some funny, all tell a story. I have made about 25 of them. I have many bracelet-less charms in boxes that are waiting to be introduced, to meet up with some new cronies, and tell a tale.

The lost bracelet was that of a little girl. The bracelet redux is for the adult who can now look back and make her life richer the way she wants it, the way she would like to remember it.

When you rewrite your own bracelet, no one can take it away.

Addendum: My friend Joan, passed away a while ago, soon after I wrote this piece; she has a terrible cancer that couldn’t be cured. She was the daughter of the late Martin Munkacsi, a brilliant photographer. More about her dad, below.

The above childhood bracelet-redux includes:

a New York State shield;
Happy Birthday cake that opens to a candle;
a pensive little child;
a disc that says “Susie;”
initial S;
a toddler’s push-bike, no pedals;
a roller skate; (the kind you tighten on your shoe with a skate key)
a telephone—our number was Oregon 3-9833;
a clock—time passes;
a piano—there is a cat inside!—it represents the piano my next door neighbor got when we were 6 years old; I was so jealous I hid in the closet for days and cried. I wanted to learn Moonlight Sonata;
the I LOVE YOU spinner;
my first and last 2-wheeler bike;
a little ice cream cart that opens to 2 flavors, red and green—a heart and a shamrock;(you can read about it in my poem, “1959”;
a pencil that writes, as do I;
an eraser for all of my life’s mistakes;
a book that opens to a bookworm inside;
a train, representing the subway we took every weekend, twice a weekend to Brighton Beach; (you can read about it in, “Wake Up Little Susie”;
a camera, I was the daughter of a photographer and loved to take pictures. It has a blue enamel “watch the birdie” inside;
a chaise lounge with an umbrella for the beach;
the lost cactus in a pot;
an artist’s palette;
a tv that opens; there’s a tv camera inside; (memories of all the great television shows from the 1950’s are hidden inside)
a mailbox; I was an avid letter writer;
a heart that says I Love you; I had discovered boys;
a ‘70’s looking I LOVE YOU;
a little scorpio sign;
a stave of rock & roll music; my main “stave”(one thing my mother did not dump was my collection or 45 rpm’s. Unfortunately the albums went. So long, “Dion and the Belmonts;”
a phonograph player that opens to a record;
and it ends with my 1966 graduation from High School.

My youth has been rewritten.

I’ll be adding to the jewelry photo album weekly, there’s plenty to see!

reply fuzzysworld wrote on Dec 15, ’07 Gee, all I did was post a picture and instructions. Great blog!

reply kwika wrote on Dec 15, ’07 Wonderful things charm bracelets. I had one gold and one silver but didn’t really like the feel of them dangling around my wrist and getting caught up in my clothes, hair, knickers haha but that is another story LOL. However I am shocked by your mother’s behaviour. To discard things not her own, to tear down a child’s fantasy I find hard to credit. I mean how many adults still hold dear their childhood “things.” And there you are still searching for them and I thought I was disadvantaged…I don’t know whether to smile or cry.

reply sanssouciblogs wrote on Dec 15, ’07 Actually, Bev, I am so afraid of losing them I rarely wear them; I guess that loss was deeply traumatic. To this day I take such good care of little things–very childlike– I am afraid of using them up and losing them. Quite irrational for an adult who can replace something material, but I know where it comes from. We surely are products of our childhood. The again, that “trauma” has given me much fodder for creativity.

reply sweetpotatoqueen wrote on Dec 16, ’07 Ok..I have a charm bracelet from childhood that I adore for the memories as well…but for a different reason. My godparents were 50 ish when I was born and never had children. I was the child they never had and boy oh boy,did they pull out all the stops with their gift giving. When I was 8 they presented me with a solid gold chain and added to it every year. At the time it didn’t register how nice this was..kids don’t know the difference between gold versus metal. It sits in my jewlery box,with 20 gold charms on it ..each is a remembrance of times we spend together and special occasion. My charms include: 4 leaf clover,silhouette of me as a child etched on one side, confirmation charm with date and monogram, flute(my musical intrument),ballet dancer ( I was a young dancer) and various others. I haven’t thought about this in years till I read your blog here…thanks for this my friend! I am so delighted you now have a chance to let your creativity flow since you are retired. I want to be just like you when I grow up!! Really!

reply gilesy01 wrote on Dec 16, ’07 That’s fascinating. The things parents do without thinking simply because they were doe to them. You’d think they’d remember how they felt and resolve not to do the same to their own children, but somehow it doesn’t seem to happen. The bracelet looks very elegant.

reply jeffpoet wrote on Dec 16, ’07 it’s a little difficult to me to understand all of your post (langage, expressions, …) but I understand what seems to be essential for all of us : CREATIVITY is the most important activity in this heart !Etre creatif, quelque soit le moyen d’expression ! Et surtout AIMER est indissociable de ETRE CREATIF !Tout ce qui a été crée par amour est merveilleux.Good sunday, Sue !

reply jeffpoet wrote on Dec 16, ’07 heart = sorry it was earthAnd it’s funny to see that, in english, earth and heart are so near ! MOTHER EARTH like the HEART of a MOTHER !!!!!!!

reply annedigitalis wrote on Dec 16, ’07 Great Blog! Awesome storytelling, loved all the descriptions of the city and the idea of a life told in charms. Looking forward to seeing more of your charms.

reply opossumd wrote on Dec 16, ’07 I remember seeing some of your creations earlier. They’re really like diaries: they tell an infinity of details of Sue and her life. Each charm has a story of its own. I understand very well why you can’t be parted from them. My apologies for being insensitive enough to ask you if you’d sell them. And congratulations on your unique creations. There’s no one like Sue.

reply surelydimple wrote on Dec 16, ’07 Great blog GREAT!! You are a very discriptive writer, makes me feel what you felt when writing it. I am looking forward to reading more from you, thanks again for letting me join your friend list. I still have my charm bracelet, not near as many charms as yours, I think I became to much of a tomboy to wear it there for a while.{Sorry now}. I bead necklaces too. I blow the glass pendents and then bead them. I havnt played with the glass for quite some time now. You see the torch came with my ex and I dont have my own yet. I loved melting and molding the glass, took me a while to get comfortable with using the propane and oxygen tanks by myself. Funny huh? Was afraid of getting burned by the torch and it turns out it was the ex that burned me.C’est La Vie say the old folks…goes to show you never can tell.

reply laura1may wrote on Dec 17, ’07 How well I rememebr those bracelets. Other little girls always seemed to have better charms than mine. I also liked the ones with different coloured polished semi-precious stones, and the little beaded purses taht were all the rage at the time.

reply agnes128 wrote on Dec 17, ’07 LOL In France charms bracelets aren’t popular. Maybe I’m an exception, I’ve always loved them, find them so chic and personal. I’ve met Lea a.k.a. Velvet, she’s one of mine online friends, she is creating (doing isn’t accurate enough) lovely jewelry. I asked for a charm bracelet with glass beads with flowers, she even found some butterflies. All the things I’m found of. I also took a green heart as a symbol to my green ideas. I just LOVE it, can’t stop wearing it. I lost a bead in the Pyramides area in Paris. At first I was feeling sorry, then I imagined a little girl may find it : a little treasure. And Lea, a dear as she is, sent me some new beads, just in case…