Day 4

I wanted to try and change things up a bit each day and still somehow connect them to the daily experiences of the year.
Almost a decade ago, I moved from Northern Jersey to Queens. I loved living in Queens and although there were many rough patches, it was a brief period of reinvention. It took me a few months to find work when I learned for the first time, and very fast, that simply being an artist did not pay the bills.
I worked in a salon for a few months and it was the most hellish and stressful experience of my life. I was supposed to have gotten an instant job at New York City Harley Davidson, but the owner jerked me around for a month and I wound up in the most upper class salon on Long Island. While driving to work each day, dreading my new salon job, I saw a new Harley Davidson being built. The sign out front said Miracle Mile. I remember thinking to myself that nothing about the trek to the salon each day was a Miracle,  and how much I needed one.
One day, overstressed, overworked, and underpaid, I stopped in the newly opened dealership and asked for a job. My soon to be manager and I clicked right off the bat, and within a week, I not only had a new job, but gained 4 older and 2 younger sisters. Cheryl, Rosa, Roseanne and Linda (I called her Marie...a joke we shared from A Bronx Tale) changed my life in ways I doubt they know. We were there for each others block parties, late college graduations, wedding showers, bachelorette parties, weddings, and holidays. We were... the "girls". We had the model department for the East Coast and still laughed together all day. A sisterhood that no one could expect or find again.
Working at Harley had its perks. We all had a discount, and who can stop women from shopping? Needless to say, I am still overloaded with all sorts of Harley merchandise.
This bracelet was one of my favorites. I always wanted the tiffany style bracelet like this and knew I'd never have the money. I thought to myself, I'd never find the amazing people I found at Tiffanys, and I embraced the piece of jewelry, reminding me that a tiffany bracelet may be beautiful, but the sisterhood at Harley was priceless.
Years went by and we all went our own ways, but I still have a photo of myself and the sisterhood on my bookshelf.
I am currently working on Tshirt design ( what I originally thought I'd be doing for Harley) for a close family friends son who just passed. His brothers are meeting up a year from now to memorialize him and ride free for him. I was having trouble thinking of this memorial design because I did not know him. But bikes have always brought brothers, uncles, dads, and sisters into my life. People that will always be priceless and never forgotten. This is the way of Harley.
So today, Day 4, I part with the bracelet thats been sitting in my drawer. The photograph on my shelf is what I can never give up. The jewelry should go to another sister out there and let the legends of all the sister and brotherhoods live on. Here's to "the girls".