The tattered pages of my Grandfather’s music book hold some of America’s best loved songs from the time. The blue facade, although covered in veins of old age, is decorated in tiny notes and stars, that surround the title. “America’s Best Loved Songs: The Great Standards” in a range of soft to more serious fonts. The bottom reads”For the Professional Musician Only”. From the front you can see pages sticking out, as they’ve fallen from the comfort of the spine. Ripped and bent edges stick out like overgrown vines. Once the book is opened, you can flip from”unchained melody” to “fools rush in” with relative ease. And, although as the title suggests it is a rather “standard” book of music, it has much greater meaning for me. Each rough, yellowed page, is a symbol of something my Grandfather used to play. His hasty highlighting through the measures remind me, that this book, like many other collections of music, are living, breathing documents. They can be altered, in one way or another to fit the need or taste of the musician who is playing it. That maybe the most significant thing about this book to me. I’m not only able to play songs my Grandfather played, I’m able to play them how he would. And, as I flipped through until the very end, looking at the title “Mazl”, a song I’m unfamiliar with, I let the book fall forward, to a close. And, on the back, I see, what can undoubtedly, especially knowing my Grandfather, be a coffee stain. And to me, that just made the book all the better.

The necklace with the thin silver chain, that has the quarter sized coin hanging from it, and the gold frame, has a history, much longer than it’s chain. Found by the scuba diver/treasure hunter Mel Fischer off the coast of Florida, the Atocha coins were once on  Spanish galleon ships, long before they were found on the bottom of the ocean floor.   One, side has a large cross engraved in it, with a cloud like frame around that. On the other side, there is what looks like a coat of arms, some parts covered in engravings of castles and   lions, while other parts are just adorned with horizontal lines here and there. On the far right of the arms reads the letters, “POD”. What it stands for, I’m not sure. Notably a weird thing to wear everyday, this coin not only reminds me of how cool I thought the treasurer hunter and his loot was, but of my family. As we each have a coin of our own that we wear. For the most part, the coin reminds me of my dad, who has been scuba diving since he was 18 years old. The man would love to get lost in the lull of the ocean, any time, any day. It reminds me of all the times he took me out to go snorkeling. I would always follow him as he harpooned eight feet down, to get a closer look at a fish or shell. And, now that I’m beginning the process of getting my own scuba diving license, I look at the coin as helping lead up to all that. It’s been with me since I was probably twelve years old, and by then I, much like my dad, was very happy staying among the salty waves. And now, 21, graduating college and hopefully doing something enjoyable with the coming years, perhaps it’s a symbol of some adventure to come. On the ocean floor, or bobbing above them.