Treasured

I'll kick off tonight with a story about something that happened in my family that ISN'T completely fucked up. It's kind of interesting, I guess? But mostly just a bit weird because I really don't think anyone else does this except for a few very specific kinds of people. It's just something my parents decided to do and it became a fixture in our house and it occurs to me thinking about it that it's just one of those details I actually have to explain.

Unless you read a lot about European nobility--or gemology--you're probably not aware of this particular habit among the upper classes and royalty and other sorts of people whose heirlooms include sparkly, colourful hunks of translucent minerals set in precious metal. You've probably heard of the famous 'Hope Diamond', right? (Which is, incidentally, very disappointing and quite boring--if you're going to hang out in the 'minerals' section of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, go down the hall and take a look at the room full of all the meteorites that have fallen into people's houses. Yes this room exists!! And there are pictures.) Well, the aristocracy would name the largest and most prized of their ancestral bling. Queen Victoria had the Koo-i-Nor diamond, Marie Antoinette had the French Blue (which some people believe may have been the Hope Diamond, before it was cut down), and the Empress of Austria-Hungary had the Star Sapphire pendant. Even early silent film star Mary Pickford had an heirloom gem with a name, in her case a giant sapphire called the Star of Bombay.

If you have a big enough gemstone, you name that fucker.


But most people don't have gemstones this big, or if they do they tend not to even be aware that a tradition exists of giving a name to your jewellery. (Also I think now some of the novelty has been lost when it comes to large gemstones--they used to be noteworthy because they were so rare, gems of a sufficient size that they could be cut and still be enormous. We have better synthetic materials and better techniques for cutting so these days a gigantic diamond is infinitely more likely to be a big ol' fake 'bling' than it is an actual hunk of carbon crystal.) But my parents not only own a gem big enough to name, they actually named it. And not as a joke, either. They actually seriously genuinely call it this in casual conversation.


As I've mentioned before, my dad worked for international aerospace companies as a software engineer and programmer and his work would often require him to spend months at a time in other countries. One of the common assignments was in Alice Springs, Australia. Alice Springs is absolutely the most remote place on the entire planet. Until the 1970s the only contact it had with the outside world was a weekly supply train that came from Adelaide and other than that it was surrounded on all sides by thousands and thousands of miles of desert. It isn't like that anymore now. It has an airstrip and a thriving tourism business based on two things: first, Alice Springs is literally smack in the middle of nowhere; second, it's near Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock). Alice Springs also rakes in obscene amounts of money based on the fact that there are extremely productive mines in the area yielding opals and topaz. They're so easy to find that Alice Springs is one of the few places where such gems can be purchased for insanely small prices. My dad was always really good about bringing stuff back from his trips and unset gems were among them.


My mom especially liked this because her birthstone happens to be a topaz. She prefers the standard golden-orange topaz, but Alice Springs is actually one of the few places in the world where naturally occurring blue topaz is mined and she wanted a blue topaz from there. So on his second (or maybe third) trip, my dad indeed did buy her a blue topaz.


A fucking enormous blue topaz.


Unless you're a rapper or an ostentatious movie star or a member of a current reigning family somewhere, you don't own gems this big. It's not big enough to cause back problems from wearing it, but it's big enough that most people immediately think it's a fake because nobody seriously owns genuine gemstones that size. How big is it?


It's about the size of a very plump almond. And that's cut to pretty sparkly facets. It's twelve carats in weight. (To put it in perspective, the Hope Diamond is slightly over 45.5.) My dad bought it raw and brought it back to the States so my mom could pick out whatever settings she wanted for it. And she actually wears this thing, too--not as a casual thing, but an event needn't be more prestigious than a friend's dinner party for her to break out that bad boy and show it off.


I don't actually really know when they named the topaz, but at some point they did and have referred to it by this name ever since. It's quite a pretty name, to be honest, and sounds much more regal and important than it actually is. It isn't some treasure heirloom from a lost monarchy or ruling dynasty. It has never belonged to anyone more interesting than an overweight middle-aged American schoolteacher.


But the name they gave it makes it somehow more impressive than a massive gemstone is on its own.


It's called 'The Star of Alice'.


Pretty neato, huh??


It's just another one of those things that occasionally strikes me as being extremely strange. I wouldn't be able to refer to this thing as the 'Star of Alice' without having to explain things as I did here. Nobody else does it.


Just my parents, I guess.