Summer makes me think of home in Medford, Oklahoma, where my two best friends and I spent much of our time twirling. I don’t know if we really thought one of us would be the next great drum major, but twirling those batons was great fun. Unfortunately, I was clumsy and sometimes when I threw my baton too high and I didn’t catch it properly, it would smack me on the head. (I can hear my immediate family saying “now we know what’s wrong with Mom.”) I had a similar whacking problem when I tried to twirl two batons at once. Luckily, I survived those head bumps and lived to tell about them.
The best I can do now is swirling rather than twirling. I’ve been working with this basic swirl 
for a series of short articles on creative thinking for Magpie Gemstones (www.magpiegemstones.com). If you don’t already subscribe to the newsletter from this site, I think you would enjoy it. I’ve made all manner of different swirling shapes for the upcoming articles and tried to find new ways to use them creatively by applying fluent, flexible, original and elaborative thinking. I’m enjoying wearing a couple of bracelets that I made with swirls. These are quite plain and layer nicely with other bracelets.
Additionally, playing with how to use these swirls in necklaces has been more of a challenge. These pieces fit nicely and mold well to the neckline. It is, however, somewhat difficult to display them. I’ve worn a couple of these and people seem to like the way they look.
I guess I’ll stick with swirling in lieu of twirling as one of this summer’s activity. Alas, with age, we should put away childish things and I do still remember a bad bump I got across the bridge of my nose,. (But isn’t it good to stay young at heart? I wonder where that baton went.)
Keep swirling, twriling and whatever keeps you young at heart. I love your humor as I remember fondly of the twirling years, and a few bumbs and scraps from skating, now also swirling and bending wire, no torch, I’d be dangerous with fire at my age. Your work is lovely, keep up the good times!!! BD, Texas
Hi Bara. I guess I’ll be swirling and twirling until my eyes give out – isn’t it fun? Wow, I’d forgotten about going skating. That was another favorite thing. I grew up in a town of 1200 and skating was pretty exciting.