Hello, this is Flower Jem.
Today, I listed Towa from the Sixty Series on the Flower Jem website. It was already available on Etsy, but I posted it here a little later.
Within the world of Akoya pearls, 9 mm is considered a large size. The metal fittings are made of silver. The surface of the pearls has fine wrinkles, almost like fingerprints. However, considering they are over 60 years old, their luster is remarkably strong. It is not a sharp, LED-like shine but rather a gentle, warm glow, like incandescent light.
So far, I have listed a total of six Sixty Series pieces — bracelets and earrings — starting with Etsy. Each time, I write a story about the Sixty Series. Every time I do, memories I had long forgotten come back to me — stories about the history of these pearls and about the moment I first encountered them. It feels like digging deeper and deeper in many directions, and it’s truly enjoyable.
There’s only one drawback: typing the letter “X” in “Sixty Series.” It’s not a letter I use often in everyday Japanese typing, so I always stumble there. It’s surprisingly stressful. Maybe, as I continue to make 9 mm, 8 mm, and 7 mm pieces in this series, I’ll eventually get used to typing it.
Today is Monday. I moved from Kobe to Osaka around 1 a.m. last night. I spend weekends at home in Kobe surrounded by pearls, and weekdays in a temporary apartment in Osaka doing work unrelated to pearls. My departure from Kobe keeps getting later, and now it’s often past midnight. Last night, I went to bed around 2:30 a.m. and woke up at 6 a.m. This morning, I was staggering around like I had a hangover.
At the moment, I have several pearl pieces that I’ve made but haven’t listed yet. There are also some that are still only available on Etsy.
I got home relatively early today — around 6:30 p.m. I sat down for a quick rest and started scrolling Instagram, and before I knew it, I had dozed off for about 20 minutes. The drowsiness was overwhelming.
I woke up and started cooking rice. Since I’d run out, I rode my motorcycle to the supermarket to restock. For my bento, I bought frozen broccoli, eggs, rice, and my current favorite side dish: candied kidney beans. It takes about 15 minutes to get to the supermarket by bike. It’s only a few kilometers away, but the area is full of traffic lights, so it’s hard to move smoothly.
Izumiotsu, where my Osaka apartment is located, is famous for its Danjiri Festival. The neighboring city of Kishiwada is more widely known, but this area is lively too. The main festival will be held this weekend, and I can already hear the sounds of festival music rehearsals echoing from all around. The evening air was cool and pleasant.
When I returned home, the rice cooker had just one minute left. The shopping trip took about 40 minutes. I washed my lunch boxes, made tamagoyaki, packed the bento with the frozen broccoli and some grilled mackerel I had stored in the freezer, and added the candied beans too. I wonder if candied kidney beans are something people overseas would understand — the translation is done by AI, so I’ll read it myself later.
By the time I finished all that, it was just before 9 p.m.
Then I began the work of listing the new Sixty Series earrings, Towa.
Usually, I simply copy the Etsy listing when I post a product on the Flower Jem site. But lately, I’ve felt as though a voice from above is asking, “Do you have no motivation?” So this time, in addition to the original Etsy description, I wrote something new.
While writing it, memories I had completely forgotten came flooding back — like how I first started learning metalworking. My product descriptions have long been more like diary entries or essays than straightforward descriptions, and recently that tendency has become even stronger. I simply write what I want to write at the moment, without holding back.
The main theme is always related to the Sixty Series. The pearls themselves have a fascinating historical background, and my encounter with them was deeply personal — it happened during a difficult period of my life, and through them, I met people who changed my path. By writing about these things, I hope to convey not just what the pearls are, but also who is handling them, and why.
Every night I tell myself, “I’ll go to bed early tonight.” And yet, here I am — it’s now 12:10 a.m.
Good night, and pearl bless you.