“I want a gold ingot,” said my mother. “I don’t want to do anything with it. I just want to hold it and look at it from time to time.”
I, and probably most of humanity, can relate. For example, I don’t wear much jewelry, but I sure do like owning jewelry. There is something so inherently strange and wonderful about gold, both the metal and the color. Naturally occurring metals are elements, meaning, I guess, that they don’t have molecules—just a very, very large collection of atoms. Gold is useful and beautiful, a juxtaposition that can only be applied to a handful of things. It is so malleable that it can be hammered into sheets of unimaginable thinness, and it has conductive properties that make it useful for computer circuits and suchlike. Gold also has a way of pinch-hitting for one’s teeth: I have three such crowns. (Mandatory digression: if I need a new front tooth, I promise to go with ceramic instead of gold. Either that, or I will double down, and get a gold incisor with a ruby inset.) I am sure there are many other things that one can do with this fantastical substance.
And of course, it is beautiful. If you want to wear your gold, you have to add something with a little more mustard, such as copper or zinc, for it to keep its shape. You can also add certain substances to change the color. Imagine, pink gold! That’s like a plastic glass, or a white black bear.
And when one can’t have the real thing, both humans and nature have striven to recreate the effect. Certain paints and dyes have come close, but dear old Mother Nature might have done a bit better. I am speaking of the golden chain tree, pictured below. I bought one once, but it, being too gentle for the world that is my back yard, died quickly. I think often of getting another and taking better care of it.
On the other hand, gold, or more specifically, the desire thereof, and can make people do horrific things. Everybody knows that folks like Pizzaro, Coronado, Cortez were unabashed mass murderers and purveyors of genocide. And never was there ever a Gold Rush that could be described as a bastion of good will and fair play. But I wonder, does the desire for gold ever just sort of sneak up on some of us? I am reminded here of the inimitable and ever-enigmatic Shirley Jackson, who wrote of Merricat, a mad young recluse who sat for hours and “played with her golden chain.” Was her fascination a symptom of her existing malady? Or did the glittering metal somehow hypnotize her, and drive her down that rabbit hole?
Maybe. But I think for most of us, the fascination is a of a milder nature, more meditation than madness. My mother wanted an ingot to quiet her thoughts, and I can only imagine how she would have loved this tree.
For further edification:
Black Bear Color Phases – North American Bear CenterNorth American Bear Center
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Wikipedia
Mama would indeed have loved that tree. While being almost completely non materialistic, she understood about having a pure ingot to look at. Once she let me order a silver ingot, that I still have.
Silver sounds nice too. You’ll have to let me hold it for a minute when I come down this fall. 🙂