I have this locket, you see. It is nearly 100 years old, is 14k gold and contains a handsome watch which you can only see when you spring open one side of it by depressing the stem. If you are canny enough to find the slight divot in the case, you can spring the other side to reveal this inscription:
To Margaret
November 10, 1913
from Russell
On the outside of the case is engraved with the letter M, which is convenient for my daughter, because her name is Megan, and one day this locket watch will be hers. The watch was last my grandmother's, who was not Margaret either, but Mary.
We don't know who Margaret and Russell were.
My grandmother wore it because it was pretty, because she could use the letter M, and because the cryptic inscription seemed so romantic in a way that is only supplied by the imagination, which is a commodity the women of my family have in spades. She did not wear it as a timepiece, because the watch never worked.
When my grandmother passed, and I received this watch, I began wearing it nearly every day because of the connection with her, who was for all practical purposes my mother and my guiding light. I have done this for thirteen years without the watch working, although from time to time I'd fiddle with it just to see.
One afternoon last summer on my lunch hour, I was listening to an audio of Burt Goldman, who along with Uri Geller (The very controversial spoon bending guy) would ask audiences to bring in their broken watches and set them in a pile, and Goldman and Geller would yell WORK! at them, and some did.
I was wearing my locket. I put it in my hands and scrunched up my face and yelled WORK! I gave it all my umph. I felt ridiculous, and caught myself glancing around in case anyone in the parking lot caught me out.
It didn't work.
I forgot all about it, in much the same way I conveniently forget about many of the embarrassing little experiments and failures that litter the path of an interesting life - the ones that never make it into the biographies, and that aren't even confessed to spouses, but which do occasionally find their way into blogs under a pseudonym like this one. But I digress..
On November 11, (11-11), I caught up with internet chatter about those two numbers appearing together, and decided since my locket watch didn't work anyway, I'd at least set it to 11:11 as a personal reminder of the spiritual awakening (which a lot of people think noticing 11:11 is all about.)
When next I looked at it, to show it off to someone who admired it, I saw the hands had moved to a different position. I repositioned them again to 11:11, pushed in the stem and then noticed that the second-hand was moving!
I carefully wound the stem just a few twists, and kept checking it throughout the day.
It has worked beautifully ever since.
Posts
