Saturday, November 14, 2009

Crystals of "Wrong"-ness

Jack used to say that guys had a hard time admitting that they were wrong. The riff went something like this: "I've been practicing saying it in front of a mirror. 'I was wrr. I was wrrru. I was wruuuh.'" Just couldn't get it out. So, if one of us was admitting that we were a little bit wrong, we'd say that we were "wruh." It was just one of those "Jack and Linda" things.

At some point while we were living in Redmond, we'd had some sort of disagreement. I don't even remember what it was about. Just that we didn't agree. Then, one evening, he came home from work with a small gift for me. It was a cut crystal on a string with beads. He had come up with a new tradition. When one of us was seriously wrong, the person who was wrong would buy the other a crystal to hang in the kitchen window. This was a way of reminding ourselves that we were actually WRONG sometimes.

As the years passed, we continued this tradition. I was the last one to have to buy a crystal. It happened not too long before Jack died. When the incident occurred, I said to Jack, "OK, I was wrong, but not 'crystal wrong'." To which he said, "Oh yes, you were. You owe me a crystal." Of course, I made good on our tradition. The window got fairly full, and it's sad that we won't be adding to them. But it was a really good tradition to acknowledge our wrongness.

[This photo doesn't do them justice. If you've ever been to my house in WA, you've seen them in the kitchen window. The moon faerie was purchased at an art festival in San Ramon while we were still living in CA. (It's a fairie and mermaid sitting on the moon.)]