I pull out my carry-on bag, open it, and slide my hand into a red Chinese embroidered bag about the size of Crown Royal whiskey bag. It contains the colourful glass beads, each containing a speck of Indy dust – this is what Mark and I have named her cremated remains.
In the end we will leave nine in Japan. Each bead is about the size of a shooting marble, the kind our daughter used to collect when she was in grade three or four. Some are perfectly round, others are doughnut shaped. Mark has strung them on a burgundy velvet ribbon. I’m terrified of losing them. The beads are made using a technique called lampworking. The colours are layered, the images made by manipulating glass pipes that look like coloured spaghetti.
Each Indy bead represents an aspect of who she was. There’s a red one that looks like a tiny 1950s flying saucers, another that says “sing” with a musical note, one with a singing bird, a blue and silver bead that looks like the earth seen from space. There are small cracks inside the glass that remind me of firecrackers breaking through the night sky. When I run my hands over the beads I can feel these. This is the India dust. Lezlie Winemaker, the artist who made them, told me that when India’s remains hit the fire they sizzled. “She’s a feisty one. I can tell,” she said.
from One Strong Girl. Published October 31st, 2018
Bead #1
Cleveland, Ohio – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
41.508117, -81.695147. We’re pretty sure India would have liked the Rock and Roll Hall of fame. We KNOW she would have loved Johnny Cash’s bus! That’s where her first bead is.
Bead #2
Tokyo, Japan – Hibiya Koen
(Gardens attached to the Imperial Palace).
35.674776, 139.758196.
Bead #3
Harajuku district, Tokyu Plaza
35.668586, 139.705829. I think this was one of our favourite places for a bead.
Bead #4
Tokyo, Japan – Ghibli Museum, Inokashira Park
35.696131, 139.570354. The Ghibli Museum was closed and the gates were locked the day we went but we managed to get a bead in anyway.
Bead #5
Yasaka Shrine, Kyoto
35.004004, 135.778770. We came upon this large Shrine at dusk on our first evening in Kyoto, visiting the Gion – the old part of Kyoto.
Bead #6
Kyoto, Japan – Arashiyama district, Bamboo Forest
35.016858, 135.672279. Arashiyama is like walking around inside a Miyazaki movie. It’s in the hills just north of Kyoto.
Bead #7
Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple
35.026970, 135.664993. On a whim we decided to walk a ways up the hill and try to get into the Adashino Nenbutsu-ji temple.
Bead #8
Manga Museum, Kyoto
35.011936, 135.759043. The building used to be an old elementary school and the upstairs is still a museum showing the classrooms.
Bead #9
Kyoto, Japan – Off the Shijo Dori Bridge in the Kamo River
35.003511, 135.771448. The Shijo Bridge over the Kamo connects the commercial centre Kyoto with the historic Geisha district of Gion – the Old Town.
Bead #10
Tokyo, Japan – Old City – Yanaka Cemetery, Burnt-out Pagoda
35.725275, 139.770797. We couldn’t resist the vision of the burning pagoda.
Beads #11 & 12
Vancouver, BC – Margaret Buxton
49.275570, -123.059163. One extra bead for the time she would have spent with Margaret during college
More to come…
S. Lesley Buxton. Writer. 