To Dig Yourself

In Arkansas, I learned that nothing sticks to diamonds. Nothing. Not dirt or water or mud or feathers or nickelodeon slime. Diamonds have no static electric charge. So when you see one in the dirt, you’ll see one. YaknowwhatImean?

To find a diamond you have to be dedicated. I read on a tourist website that the average visitor to Crater of Diamonds State Park  only looks for about twenty minutes before giving up.  We made a pact that we wouldn’t give up for twenty hours! Twenty weeks!!

 

We’d been watching a few episodes of “Gold Rush Alaska” the night before and were pretty sure these guys were working on finding their glory hole. Our technique was as ambitious but not as showy. 

Aside from the people that brought diamond sniffing beagles, everyone else was all willy-nilly – grabbing at dirt and dumping buckets of water everywhere.  I heard more than a few people say “I’d probably find something if I knew what I was looking fer!” (to which I would silently say, did you not read the sign?! We are looking for diamonds sir!) I also heard more than a few mothers yell at their kids while dragging them over the 30 acre field of turned-over earth; “I told y’all to NOT get dirty!” (to which I would silently say, this is the metaphor for how things are gonna be with her the rest of your life, kiddos)

The upside of everyone else giving up is that there is some kind of mine etiquette that says the people walking out have to stop and see how you are doing and wish you well. It’s pretty cute when some six year-old girls carrying pink buckets tell you, “Good luck!!”

We called it a day after several hours of meditative sifting. No diamonds, but I burnt the three-inch section of the tops of ankles because I had my pants rolled up just so. I vowed to purchase a healing quartz crystal at another local mine as soon as possible.

No drowning our sorrows in beer though, Murfreesboro is a dry, dry county. Our consolation prize:

 

Now a mainstream phrase, the term Tiger Blood has been around the snow ball world forever.

Turns out these really were New Orleans Style Snow Balls – the lady told us that she and her husband had moved up from Louisiana after all the hurricanes. It was just too much to always live in a state of impending evacuation. She said they had always come up there to vacation so why not? 

I kind of feel like a hurricane brought me to Arkansas too. A different kind of hurricane though - a kind of hurricane inside my soul that is feeling destructive for raw gemstones. We may have left the mine empty handed that day, but I’ve extended my search dedication time limit from twenty hours to twenty weeks to twenty years.

I will find you!!!

*the snow ball lady also has cute plants for sale.