...hello my precious...

New morganite ring in center

These gems have life in them: 

their colors speak, say what words fail of. 

~George Eliot

I can’t recall when morganite, the light pink stone that is a beryl just like emeralds and aquamarines, was first shown to me. I’m not really a pink girl unless it’s some sort of obnoxious accent but I have pink undertones in my skin and have always been drawn to the lightest of pinks in cosmetics. I have also had a heart-shaped rose quartz as a good luck stone since high school. And, I do have a small collection of opalescent pink glass including a Duncan Miller Glass Sylvan Swan Dish from 1947. Anyhow, this light pink has apparently always been waiting in the background and has finally crept into my life over the last few years.

Pink beryl is a rare light pink to rose-colored  gem-quality variety of beryl. It was actually renamed morganite in 1910 by famed gemologist George F. Kunz in honor of financier and gem enthusiast J. P. Morgan.  Morganite continues to be rare so it doesn’t have the popularity that other gems (coughs *diamonds*) hold.

At some point I read “In Praise Of Morganite Engagement Rings” and was immediately agreeing, “Yeah” with the author’s arguments. While the author of the article, like me, didn’t consider herself a pink kind of girl, she liked the symbolism of the stone. She writes, “The morganite also boasts a sweet symbolism behind it with some claiming that the gemstone helps inspire and maintain love, making it an extra-perfect choice for an engagement ring.” Basically, this was a woman with taste that was a little different from her peers and she wanted to be slightly different while liking how neutral the pink looked on the skin. What I liked about the article was that unlike some of my friends who went to great lengths to avoid “blood diamonds” by doing countless research but yet being unwilling to buy an antique diamond that could potentially have bad juju or was too small by today’s standards (I’m rolling my eyes to all of these arguments), she went the road less traveled. Why do we love diamonds? Advertising. Did I write a post about this? This rant seems so familiar. Ah, why yes I suppose I did rant about diamonds and my choice not to have an engagement ring. Anyhow, I am not a white diamond girl per se. I inherited my grandmother’s I had it reset with black diamonds, and my wedding band has some diamonds in it but it’s considered a fashion ring instead of a wedding ring. The sales associate even asked if I was going to get tired of the look. (Insert yet another eye roll).

So I bought a morganite ring that arrived today. It’s such an odd little mix of a 1.44ct pear shape morganite with champagne and white diamonds in 10k rose gold. It doesn’t sound like me at all but it goes perfectly with my other rings and I just can’t seem to take it off. Swoon. So there, another ring and another commitment ring to me.