Milky Way Stars Diamond Cuff Bracelet

Milky Way Stars
of the Celestial Reach

Diamond Cuff Bracelet

Fifteen years ago, I stayed at the Trailing Yew Bed & Breakfast on Monhegan Island, Maine. Our room was on the second floor. With no electricity, we were issued a box of wooden matches and told we had an oil lamp in our room.

The Trailing Yew

Sometime After Midnight

Sometime after midnight, I awoke. I lit the lamp and crept barefoot down the stairs. I took a detour out the front door to the lawn. The grass was wet with dew. It was cool, the air warm. I stepped out into the night. There was no moon, just stars. In all my life I’d never seen anything like it. I leaned back, mouth open, feet wide apart. A band of twinkling stars stretched across the sky. Of course, I’d seen stars before, but never like this. I stood barefoot in the grass for the longest time. Until that night, I had never fully understood that looking into the Milky Way, I was looking from the outside edge into the heart of our galaxy.

Barefoot and in Awe

I stood there barefoot on the earth and looked up and saw the Milky Way in ways I’d never seen it before, a broad band of stars, a river of silver light stretched across the sky. The immensity and majesty, the breadth of the celestial reach was humbling and inspiring.

– RHP, on a visit to Mohegan Island, Maine over 15 years ago.

Milky Way
Diamond Cuff Bracelet

This is Our Milky Way Diamond Cuff Bracelet. What’s unusual about this design is that it’s two-layered. It has a twenty percent 22K yellow gold exterior; the interior underside is 80% sterling silver.

The gold is alloyed with a green tint and the surface has a very fine ripple wave finish, like you were in a plane looking out the window 7,000 feet above the sea looking down at the surface of waves.

The edges of the top of the bracelet are wave cut and slightly raised, on the inside back of the bracelet the same slight wave raised surface shows in silver. Across the top of the golden night sky are 60 natural white diamonds weighing a total of .42 carat.

The bracelet interior is engraved:

900 – for 22K yellow gold

925 – for sterling silver

Cousin From
Disney World

My cousin lives in Florida, not far from Disney World. She visits Maine most years. She was recalling this week, one visit when we had a bonfire at the Phoenix Terrace. She recalled the sound of crickets, the sound of channel buoys, the sound of waves on the cliffs, the sound of the crackling fire, the neighbors who came over, and the marshmallows we toasted. She mentioned the stars in the night sky. She said the lights of Disney make the stars disappear. The stars were just so amazing that night she said.

When you always have something like stars in your night sky, it’s easy to take it for granted. If you’re from a big city, or near Disney World, it becomes special when you see them spread across the night sky.

As I look at this piece, I think about the man who made it. He is a violinist and for him, each diamond is a star in the night sky, each diamond is a note in the composition he is playing.

When I see this bracelet I also think about the winter of 1971 when I dated a violinist. She played for the Portland Symphony Orchestra. I had a free season pass and sat in the second balcony. I felt very sophisticated in 1971. Whenever I see the Milky Way Stars bracelet I think of the maker as a violinist, then I think of my violinist in 1971.

It’s interesting how memory works and can connect a series of seemingly unrelated dots but that’s the way memory works. As you think about stars and the violin I’m sure you have your own memory associations.