clock of the long now

I spent a not-quite-iPhone-sized heap of money this morning on a portable consumer information device. 

My mother's mother's mother, Hedwig Greenstein Zubrow, was born in 1899 and married my great-grandfather Simon in 1919.  At some point after her initials became HZ instead of HG, but probably before the Great Depression, she bought or was given a white gold wristwatch.  It was not a fancy watch - it has carving rather than set gemstones - and it probably cost about $20 at the time.  Of course, that was probably the family's income for an entire month.

I'm named after my great-grandmother, who died before I was born, and until last month, I'd never had anything that had belonged to her.  When my grandmother gave me her watch last month, it was not in working condition and needed significant cleaning.  I found a Swiss jeweler who has been in business here in San Francisco since the year I was born and brought the watch to him. He opened it, suggested he might be able to do something with it, and said he'd call me in a few weeks.  It felt a bit strange to leave the watch with him, no contract, no waiver of liability, no nothing.  He put the watch in an envelope, ripped off a ticket stub and handed it over. Last week he called and said it was ready, and I picked it up this morning.  It costs a lot of money to repair an old watch.

The watch ticks softly and perfectly and it will sit on my wrist exactly as it sat on my great-grandmother's wrist.  Perhaps we have similar wrists; I don't really know.  Perhaps I will have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren; perhaps they will have similar wrists; perhaps I will give one of them this watch.   I don't think any of my other devices will still exist in 90 years.