Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  Yesterday I swallowed the remedial pill and I confess I’m feeling the better for having done so!

No doubt as a whitewash of an inescapable weakness of mine I have rationalized this latest sally into the ornamental world as a palliative of sorts. It is after all a malady to which I long ago succumbed and from which I never truly imagined to be free in spite of the distance I lately put between it and myself.  In any event the circle has been closed, the damage (such as it is) has been done and my inherent predilections are for the moment anaesthetized if not in fact cured.

I amuse myself to contrive serendipitous events which admittedly are the modern equivalent of historical astrological “signs”, those specious dynamics of ancient soothsayers.  For example, and by way of introduction only, the Master Jeweller was the affable Matthew Dixon.  On the same day that I collected the piece from him, I first met with the equally congenial Dawn Dixon, a lawyer in Smiths Falls.  Small coincidence, agreed, but nonetheless there it is.  Subsequently my dear confidante JCH pointed out that we had introduced the afternoon rendez-vous with the jeweller by momentarily arresting our expedition for a cocktail at Zoe’s in the Château Laurier Hotel, a sister of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC where I first glimpsed a ring which was to become the template for the one I commissioned.  Another perhaps less tenuous intersection is that Matthew Dixon is the son of Ralph L. Dixon, the jeweller who founded the company and who over a decade ago had manufactured a winsome bloodstone ring for me through Birks, an agency relationship which was disclosed only after my persuasive insistence.  It was that initial bond which locked my sights upon Dixon Design Studio.

One might reasonably ask, “What exactly is the cure that is prevented?”  And it is this:  My well-known hankering for tinsel is, unless quelled, relentless. Until the disease is administered to, I continue to harbour all the symptoms of fever and distress, not to the degree of incapacity certainly, but nevertheless discernibly.  The infirmity has for example already manifested itself in half-hearted attempts to deaden the yearning, but like anything less than committed and unequivocal effort it failed.  In this as in all matters of plaintive need there is a threshold beyond which one must reach before triumph ensues.  I am now satisfied that I have attained that lofty goal.

One may be inclined to sneer mockingly at my all-too familiar ejaculations, as though this latest victory is but a hiccup along a tiresome and well-worn path. Readily do I concede the possibility.  Yet I have lately contemplated at some considerable length the prevention of this condition. I have concluded – albeit with squeamishness – that it is in this mission that it is resolved.  The blunt truth is that with age the doors of both need and opportunity begin to close. Yet the coincidence is not without its benefits. Once directly addressed the appetite is surprisingly diminished.  This was my ounce of prevention!