Probably I have never told the whole story to anyone, but this might be a good place to collect it. I’m starting from the very beginning, on my 10th birthday, when my aunt gifted me a thick book, The Black Corsair (Il corsaro nero, by Emilio Salgàri). That is a marvelous book, full of pirates, duels, chasings across seas and jungles. One of the main pirates is Carmaux the Biscayan, who had a big emerald sewn on the front of his pants, the equivalent of a retirement fund in the 1700s.
Four years later, I was an educator at the first summer camp organized by my parish. The theme? Pirates, of course. To get into character, I put together some clothes and an emerald-green crystal crafted with a crystal-making kit that I had. The process yielded something too small and brittle for the purpose of sewing it on my pants. However, at the summer camp we had a box full of old and new buttons for the children, used to make bracelets and necklaces with metal wire. Rummaging in that chaos I eventually found a couple of frogs (alamari), green, just what I was looking for. I dropped them in my pocket.
Those frogs where never sewn anywhere but stayed in my bedroom drawer for years. In 2015 I decided to make a twine necklace with one of those frog, to wear it during the journey of maturity and add some piracy to it. After that week, it became a symbol to bring on every occasion when I left home to spend holidays with my friends.
Initially, it was just a reference to books, but slowly it acquired a clearer meaning, I wear it whenever I leave home for an adventure. Be it one day or three months, what matter are my mood and expectations. I’m sure that, during the years, this item arouse many guesses about its function. It is not an amulet: it has no magic properties or protection power. It isn’t a lucky charm nor any kind of ornament. Instead, it is just a marker, a symbol that splits life in ordinary time and adventure time. On adventure days you learn more things than usual, you meet more people, animals, landscapes than usual, you sweat more and gain more than usual.
You are also more vulnerable than usual. The pendant is a reminder of this: danger levels tend to rise, so you must be more careful. You don’t have any more the luxury to ignore signals, but you must try to foresee the bad scenarios and take precautions or be prepared for the worst. This plastic frog is always there saying “You shall try to be at 100% of your faculties, reactive and creative”. Plus, this being such a quirky accessory, I am absolutely sure that if I were to get in the newspaper because the worst happened, people would think something like “See? He foolish felt protected by a ridiculous necklace, he felt almighty. Poor silly!” Ok, maybe they spoke like this a hundred years ago, but the meaning would be the same even nowadays. This necklace reminds me that I can’t afford to make gross mistakes while I wear it.

Besides being a reminder, it is above all the symbol of the change of mentality that occurs when there is no longer a result to be achieved, a track to follow, an appointment to be respected. I’m not talking about a state of freedom, but about opportunity. Normally, in everyday life, one follows a well-traced, well-tested path, like a groove. Moments of adventure are those periods of an hour, a week or more when you step out of the groove to explore your surroundings. Perhaps it is best understood with an example. It is difficult to find a large shell on the shore of the beach, or a deer stage in the middle of a mountain path. Both the sea and the mountains can be wonderful places, just as a life lived to the full can be of enormous satisfaction. However, I think it is worthwhile to dive below the surface, to get off the path, to seize the out-of-the-ordinary opportunities that are usually there, just beyond the horizon, where few have passed.

Whenever you leave the path marked, it is essential to be more vigilant than ever, looking for clues of nearby opportunities and also warning signs. You have to be ready for anything and sharpen your senses, this is the meaning of the necklace. You need to know exactly how much you can chew, in order not to bite off too much.

The choice of frogs is also linked to the art of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. I developed a great interest in this country when I was in the last year of middle school, choosing New Zealand as the subject of my final exam. This passion comes not only from the enormous variety of endemic species and beautiful natural parks, but also from the interest in the culture of the Maori, which miraculously survived European colonialism. Today finally the Maori are enhancing their cultural heritage and their language. Traditionally these people make pendants out of nephrite, a type of jade, which is a hard stone of the same dark green color as my frogs. So the frog is a reference to the Maori warriors and their land.

If it weren’t closed indefinitely due to the pandemic, I surely would visit New Zealand as well.

P.S.: This is just the bone clasp that closes the necklace. See what you want, for me it’s just a nice shape and fit for purpose.