The Beauty of Imperfection

My brother is an enormous J.M. Barrie fan and has read all his books, plays, short stories and other random writings.And I’m not sure which story it was but I remember him telling me once of a moment in one of Barrie’s writings that clarified things for him. Barrie said, and I am paraphrasing as this conversation happened long ago, Barrie said, ‘in each person a flaw resided and that is where the story came from.’

This conversation codified something for me. I have always found perfection boring. I understand the drive for perfection but actual perfection leaves me a little cold. It is the flaws that make stories interesting. It is the flaws that make people interesting. It is the flaws that make life interesting. And I feel that way about gemstones to.

Isadora’s sells ideals stones; stones that fulfill all the promise of the four c’s. And don’t get me wrong, a D Flawless diamond is a thing of beauty but it never seduces me the way a stone with its own quirks, flaws and ultimately beauty does. A stone with its own idiosyncrasies puts butterflies in my stomach and when one of those stones arrive in our store I find myself inexplicably drawn to it.

The stone, which I hold as, the standard for beautiful stones was in Isadora’s three years ago and my co-worker sold it to someone who wasn’t me (I forgave her but just barely).

I still dream about that emerald. It was a hazy green. Not the deep green considered most valuable but almost the color of spearmint and it had this magical inner glow. It was heavily included, each internal flaw seeming to tell the story of this stone’s birth.

And when it came time to pick my own engagement ring (with my fiancé’s assistance of course) I looked for a ring with, for a lack of a better word humanity.

There are two diamonds in my engagement ring. Both look hand cut. One is an Old European cut diamond and the other, sitting right next to it, is an Old Mine cut diamond. Two stones that are not the same but still make sense together. And I have to admit the Old Mine cut diamond is my favorite of the two.

An Old Mine cut is similar to a cushion cut. They are both rounded squares but mine is just a hair crooked. And that is why I fell in love with it. It wants to be a square but it just can’t quite achieve it.

I get my stones. I understand them. They speak to me. Everyday I look at them and they make me happy because I see a story in their imperfections. I see the man who cut the stone before a computer was invented. He was cutting blind, discovering within the stone its future. I imagine the women who wore it before me. My setting is 40’s but the stones looks older and I imagine this stone being passed down from woman to woman, each valuing and loving it. And I think about wearing it myself until I am ready to pass it on to a future daughter or niece in all its beautiful imperfection.