Dragonflies Appear

Like the fish bone skeleton necklace I wore earlier this week, this silver dragonfly brooch is a remnant of my grandmother's, Meemaw's, collection, excavated from the dark confines of some drawer by my adolescent self years ago. Since I was pairing the piece with a boldly patterned black and silver silk dress, I slipped it through a light chain, rather than pin it on the delicate fabric, for fear of tearing. Also like the fish bone skeleton, the dragonfly has a sculptural element to it, a dimension and a texture, which I enjoy immensely and find to be delightfully peculiar.

Dragonflies, as with all insects, journey through a physiological and developmental life cycle from egg to adult, where the final mature stage, and the most commonly recognized body form within the lay community, is frequently the most brief. The dragonfly is an exaggeration of this movement from egg to pupa to adult, the thin body and bulbous eyes and ephemerally translucent beating wings of the adult generally only lasting a few hours, a fleeting, transient existence to mate and to propagate. A brief and tumultuous reproductive dance, then a quick thrusting demise. This sturdy piece is a manifestation of defiance to that biologic cycle; it is the adult dragonfly forever encased, transience captured and encapsulated in a world of silver.

As for the black and silver silk dress, featuring this pattern, a shorter skirt, and full kimono-inspired sleeves, it was pulled from the closet early Wednesday with little to no forethought; it is a single piece and it is comfortable, ideal for another gray and dreary day in the northeast. My job, as of late, has become consciously and subconsciously consuming, even invading my normally bizarrely deranged but pleasant peaceful dreams, a rather unwelcome and disturbing succubus. Upon entering the conference room for an introductory meeting for a large new project, I was immediately and excitedly told that my dress pattern was indeed a mimicry of the corporate logo for one of our favorite bureaucratic behemoth clients. If you can guess which pharmaceutical dinosaur, you will win nothing tangible, but you will leave me bemusedly impressed and garner some admiration from myself.