I thought for a long time about how to tell you this, but it seems I have no chance of not upsetting you.
For the last few years, you and I have been living in pursuit of each other - moving from country to country, each following her own path, and leaving beacons and markers for one another. A chance encounter on a distant shore many years ago gave us hope that we existed within the boundaries of the same Earth, but the course of events over the last few years suggests rather that we exist in parallel universes. I flew to Montenegro, you to Turkey, I to Georgia, you to Argentina, I to Turkey, then to Thailand, and now I am already in Argentina, while you are in Paraguay, I am in Paraguay, but you are already in Chile… Four years later, we have almost found ourselves on the same continent, and the Pacific coast is almost within reach — just a two-hour flight away, but my plane will now carry me back to where it all began.
I have made the decision to return.
For a jeweler, life far away from their tools is like death. Unable to work with precious metals, I have to make sketches, work with wax, creating prototypes for that distant future when I will have raw materials and a workbench at my disposal, and will finally be able to bring my ideas to life in silver after years of wandering. Over these years, I have collected a thousand stones on different shores and made hundreds of casts of unseen plants. I tried to keep my desire to create alive throughout my forced journey around the world, but by the time I reached Paraguay, I had found myself at the bottom of a black abyss of emptiness and burnout.
We rented an old house in the wilderness, with black-and-white portraits of several generations and dilapidated wicker furniture. Listening to the wooden floorboards creak at night and the rocking chair on the terrace sway in gusts of wind, I thought about those who had grown up in this house. What do they remember about it? Did they play as children in the waters of this dark stream? What were those black, rotten beams supporting the grapevine like when they were first carefully installed by strong, sun-browned hands?
The house was full of keepsakes and stories. Having no memories of my own associated with this place, I began to feel like a shadow lost in the real lives of those who had once lived here. While clearing out a wardrobe for myself in the bedroom, I found a basket of needlework supplies and seized it as a way to feel alive again. My hands remembered the forgotten skill of crocheting - and so the woven and knitted things began to emerge, in which I brought to life everything I remembered about myself and the world.
I completely withdrew into handicrafts within our estate, walling myself off from the world with a fence and a stream. With no desire to venture beyond the grounds and marvel at Paraguay's exotic nature, I sat by the stream every day, aimlessly observing the stones and plants washed by the water. One day, I fell asleep there, and I had a dream.
I dreamed that I woke up in a dark gorge, on a bed of fallen leaves. I got up and looked around - it was a place I knew, a few kilometers from our house. Dancing shadows at the end of the path beckoned me toward the light. I squeezed through a narrow, damp passage between the rocks and climbed the familiar trail among extraordinary plants in the dense forest. Black vultures with leathery heads watched me intently, as if protecting me from gloomy thoughts. Although the forest was mysteriously dark, I was not afraid: sunbeams led me through extraordinary plants with wondrous flowers toward a clearing. From a sunlit plateau atop a cliff, I saw an immense green world at my feet, with flowering pink trees and a river disappearing between the hills. Overwhelmed by happiness and beauty, I began to dance, and with every movement, my former self awoke, with a desire to live, to see beauty, and to pass it on.
And so my Paraguayan jewelry collection was born. I leave it here, as something born from this land, as a part of this world and this nature. It will bring joy to those who live here and remind them of the celebration of life that Paraguay can be, if only one looks at it the right way. I am carrying back a spark of life to pass on to those who have lost their way in the dark current of despair and can no longer see hope.
This is how I feel about it.
I am sending you a little gift from this collection as a memento of the time you spent in Paraguay, another beacon-marker reminding us that our destinies intersect at the most unexpected points in time and space. Which means we will meet again, even though my path is now taking me to the point on this planet farthest away from you. I will believe in it. My next collection will be about this. I have time to think about it -
