How one Mexican jewelry artisan embraces all the gifts the universe has to offer.
“It was love at first sight,” Alejandra Torres says without hesitation. She was sitting in a classroom, listening to a lecture on mathematics in preparation for her entrance exam to university when she spotted him. She smiled. He smiled. Then a month passed.
One day, after she’d been admitted to the university, she ran into him and he invited her to a welcome session for new students. He was older — one semester away from graduating. She was younger and inexperienced. But there was no denying the chemistry.
Eventually, he invited her to the movies. “That day I was a bundle of nerves because I’d never been to a movie… and I’d never gone out with a boy! I grew up in a very traditional family where girls didn’t go to college and, if they had a boyfriend, it was because they were getting married.”
Alejandra remembers the evening perfectly. “When the movie was over, we went for a walk. It was cold, or maybe that was just my nerves. He offered me his jacket and placed it over my shoulders. We came to an elevated bridge and when we started climbing the stairs, he took my hand and didn’t let go.”
Soon, the tables were reversed, and it was his turn to be nervous as he asked her father for permission to date his daughter. But in the end, it was well worth it because he would become her husband a handful of years later.
And the universe itself seemed to conspire.
“For me, it was a love story. We went together for three years and three months. We were married on December 13, 1997, the day it snowed in Guanajuato where we lived. Newspapers affirmed that this had never happened before. Everything was frozen. But for me, it was a sign that we’d be together all our lives. Our first child was born on October 31, 1998 and my daughter on November 3, 2001, so their age difference is three years and three months, the same time my husband and I were sweethearts. Now I believe three is my lucky number.” This past December, they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.
One of the most incredible facets of Alejandra is how she invites love into all aspects of her world. She finds it everywhere – in nature, family, the moon and the breeze. “I go to my workshop feeling a great need to share all these moments. And for me, this is love. The love that the universe gives us and that I, with complete humility, try to convey through my jewelry designs.”
We hope that your Valentine’s Day is full of the same abundance and reverence that Alejandra infuses into her work and her life. |
