I Wore One Watch For Thirty Years. Here Is What My Wrist Looks Like Now.
I Wore One Watch For Thirty Years. Here Is What My Wrist Looks Like Now.
Same wrist, same kitchen table, same Sunday coffee. Two photos a year apart, and only one thing in them is different.
By Peggy Dalton, a customer in Austin, Texas · 3 min read
For about thirty years my left wrist has worn one thing: a plain gold watch Frank gave me when the kids were small. Not because I do not like jewelry. I own plenty of it. It lives in a little white dish on my dresser, knotted into one big snarl, and every morning I look at it and put on the watch.
Last fall my sister Sue was staying with us, and she took a picture of that dish on her phone. Then she took one of my wrist at the breakfast table and said, Peggy, you own a whole dish of jewelry and you wear a watch. I laughed, but she was right, and I knew exactly why.
- ✗A dish of jewelry you never actually put on
- ✗Chains that knot themselves together in the drawer
- ✗Clasps so tiny you need your glasses and somebody else’s fingers
- ✗Pieces that look like they belong to a teenager, or vanish under a sleeve
- ✗The same one watch, every single day
So here is the same wrist, a year apart.
Then
Now
Drag the circle to slide between then and now
Sue took the first photo last fall. This fall I took the second one myself, at the same table, with the same mug, on a Sunday morning with church still to come. I am not a writer and I have never done anything like this, but I keep showing these pictures to people, so here they are, with what changed in between.
Sunday coffee at the kitchen table
Then
Now
On the left, the watch, and that is all. It is a good watch. It just had to do all the work by itself for thirty years.
On the right, the same watch with two bracelets from Iris & Nora next to it. The Beatrice is the slim silver-tone half cuff with three tan cords, a little filigree bead and a round silver disc. The Marjorie is the wide light turquoise one, six rows of seed beads, silver strips, a striped band and a braided strand. The listing says they stack beautifully with your other bracelets and your watch, and I can tell you that is the plain truth.
The dish on my dresser
Then
Now
This is the dish Sue photographed. Pearls that are not pearls, a bangle that turns my wrist green, a beaded thing a granddaughter made at Bible camp, and about six chains that have become one chain. I have meant to untangle it since about the time our youngest left home.
I will be honest with you: the dish is still exactly the same. What changed is my wrist. I stopped reaching for something in there and started reaching for two things that are never in there, because they are on me.
The porch swing, with a sweater on
Then
Now
The thin chains in that dish disappear under a sweater sleeve the first cool day in October, and then I forget they are there, and then they catch on the knit. So from October to March my wrist was just the watch.
The Marjorie does not disappear. It is wide enough and blue enough to show at the edge of a sleeve, and it lies flat, so it does not snag. This is my rust sweater on the porch swing with a glass of tea, and that bit of turquoise is the first thing anybody sees.
Hands in my lap at church
Then
Now
You look at your own hands a lot in church. Mine used to look like they were waiting for something.
On a Sunday I wear just the Beatrice. It is quiet, silver and tan, and it goes with every Sunday dress I own. It slips on and the cord loop hooks over that little silver disc, so I can put it on by myself in the car while Frank parks. The lady behind us asked about it by the end of the first hymn.
What changed, in plain terms
- ✓They stack beautifully with your other bracelets and your watch, or look right on their own.
- ✓They slip on and fasten in seconds, no tiny clasp to fight with.
- ✓Smooth, lightweight and comfortable from morning coffee to supper.
- ✓The Beatrice: a slim silver-tone half cuff, three tan cords, a round disc charm and a filigree bead.
- ✓The Marjorie: a multi-row light turquoise band with silver-tone strips and a braided strand.
I read the reviews first, just over three hundred of them at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some sites, which honestly made me trust it more. There are twenty-eight designs in the collection, stone chips, little fish, turquoise wraps, so I have already picked out Sue’s for Christmas. They come in small runs, and the boutique told me the turquoise ones do not stay in stock long.
Beatrice | Disc Charm Cuff Bracelet
Silver-tone and tan · Free shipping
Marjorie | Turquoise Wrap Bracelet
Light turquoise · Free shipping
Fall sale on now · Free shipping · Made in small runs. Once a design is gone, it is gone.
Peggy Dalton is 63 and lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband Frank. She still wears the watch. She is not a jewelry writer.
Iris & Nora · Free shipping · 30 day returns
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