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There’s something about spring that makes me notice everything again. The birds seem louder, the first new buds suddenly appear everywhere and colors that have been missing all winter begin working their way back into the landscape. After months of relative stillness, the world feels fully engaged in waking itself up.
On a morning beach walk recently, the air was that perfect spring mixture of chilly wind and warm sunlight. I’d left the house wondering whether I needed a light knit hat, and by the end of my walk I had worked up the tiniest sweat. It struck me how much I was noticing at once: the temperature on my skin, the light, the sounds around me and that unmistakable feeling of a new season arriving.
I’ve always been sensitive to the way our senses can change how we feel. A certain smell can transport you somewhere you haven’t been in decades. A taste can bring back a person you love. Something you see or touch can unlock a story you weren’t consciously thinking about five minutes earlier.
Jewelry can do that for me, too. When I’m getting ready in the morning, I often reach for something meaningful from my jewelry box because I want it close to me that day. It’s a physical object, of course, but sometimes what I’m really putting on is a memory.
That’s one of the things I love about the Storybook Necklace. Each little letter can stand for a person, a place, an experience or something completely private to the person wearing it. The necklace becomes a collection of tiny reminders you can carry around with you.
I was thinking a lot about my Gram over the weekend as I gathered with friends to celebrate my birthday. Suddenly I could practically smell the brownies only Gram could make quite right. I could remember the texture of the sugar, the dark chocolate and those crunchy walnuts, and I found myself wondering how many batches it had taken her to perfect that recipe.
It made me think that I needed a G for Gram on my Storybook Necklace.
Gram could sit for hours by the fire telling stories about growing up on Long Island during the Depression. One I especially remember was about my great-grandmother wading into the bay wearing a skirt and apron with enormous pockets. She came home carrying a slippery eel and 28 oysters she had harvested from the Sound, enough to help feed her family during a time when food was scarce.
Those stories made me think about two more letters: O and B, for Oyster Bay, Long Island, where Gram grew up.
At my birthday celebration, I served plates of fresh oysters. It was a small thing, but it felt like a way of honoring my ancestors and keeping one of those family threads moving forward.
That’s what I find so fascinating about memory. A spring morning can make you notice the warmth of the sun, which makes you think about your senses, which somehow takes you back to your grandmother’s brownies, a story beside the fire and a woman gathering oysters generations before you were born.
The people and places we love stay with us in all sorts of unexpected ways. Sometimes it’s a recipe. Sometimes it’s a story we’ve heard so many times that we can picture it ourselves. Sometimes it’s a tradition we keep without even realizing exactly why it matters so much. And sometimes it’s something small enough to wear around your neck.
Spring always feels like a reminder of that cycle to me. Things disappear, return, change form and become part of whatever comes next. The natural world begins waking up again, and somehow I find myself remembering the people who came before me at the very same time.
Maybe that’s why this particular kind of sensory overload feels so good. It isn’t simply about seeing, hearing, smelling or tasting more. It’s about being fully awake enough to notice all the things those sensations bring back with them.
Here’s to the stories we carry with us,
Colleen
© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: April 25, 2023
Updated: August 24, 2026
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