'The Folklore Cuff'

The cuff and the bracelet have different histories. The bracelet adorns. The cuff protects. Cuffs appear in warrior traditions across cultures: the vambrace in medieval European armor, the wide leather cuffs of indigenous warriors, the gold cuffs of Egyptian nobility that were simultaneously ornamental and armor. The wrist was understood as the vulnerable hinge, the place where veins were closest to the surface, where the pulse was most accessible. To protect the wrist was to protect the life force.

In folk magic, the wrist was also where protective charms were most commonly bound. The red thread in Kabbalah. The evil eye beads of the Mediterranean. The braided cords of folk love spells. The resguardo of Afro-Brazilian tradition. To bind something at the wrist was to bind it close to the blood, to place the protection at the point where the interior and the exterior of the body were closest to each other.

Wearing your heart on your sleeve is a vulnerability. Wearing it as a cuff — deliberately, publicly, as a declaration — is something else entirely.

This is for the woman who has decided to stop hiding her heart and start wearing it where it can be seen.