Thought missives and various writings by Robin Kelly - a South African centered in Johannesburg and a writer who rarely writes but reads

Monday, September 21, 2009

THE WATCH

A few months ago at the onset of winter I decided to reorganise my study. What prompted the move were two overbearing antique Oregon pine bookshelves which had flanked the entrance but had sobered guests on arrival and departure. Since the bookshelf I did have in my study had collapsed – shockingly at 3am – under the weight of collections, I decided to lighten the entrance and make better use of them. On either side of a hundred year old study desk, they seemed more at home.

What the move prompted was an overhaul of cupboards and reorganisation of everything that had crashed to ground. With the exception of statements and receipts, months and weeks – in some instances years – of unfiled material cluttered the shelves and drawers. I consider it a curse that disarray like this inspires and challenges me. A neat staple, a perfect punch, followed by a well named file with an apt category divider and the universe feels calmer. It’s the unfilable stuff, the stuff that arrives inconsistently, unexpectedly, maybe only once – that results in what a friend once called Pile 13. I had a few of these. The real trouble is that most of the stuff in this loose, messy pile can’t form itself into a collection. It doesn’t merit the distinction of a titled and organised folder.
The bookshelves meant it had to be tackled.

Filtering through the cupboard shelves – it’s best to tackle them one by one until complete – I stumbled across a hall of ghosts. As with any organising principle, the cohesion and affinity you share with needful things ensures an intimate relationship with the past. Old photos of long forgotten ex’s. Scans of your most faithful dogs broken leg. Rejected builders quotes for the renovation you finally went ahead with. Crap like this you can’t file, can’t throw away, feel compelled to keep.
It’s when I found the wallet that everything started.

The wallet belonged to my father and was pretty well worn. In it, the remains of a poor man: conscientious of a small saving on a final withdrawal; a well thumbed estate agent card; a food receipt or two… telling only in its brutal simplicity. The usual reaction – guilt. The reason this wallet ended up in a back corner of a cupboard behind empty boxes and loose papers. Could I have averted his untimely death; could I have done more, helped more, paid more, been more to him? Had I been a grateful son, did I respect his toil to ensure my success – oh god would I ever be at peace with the shadow of this man!
Candle. A close friend had given me a candle to light in his honour. I knew exactly where the candle was and it felt like a good moment to light it, sitting in the center of the intellectual world that had brought me a certain level of achieved success. What I had forgotten however, was the date he had died.

When he died, I had bought a watch. Like every ad for a sophisticated timepiece, I was moved by the notion that you never really own an expensive watch, you merely hold onto it for the next generation. Having inherited little by way of things I figured it was time to start a tradition so I bought what was at the time a very expensive watch. Although the design and model was classic, a few years later I decided on another. I then packed the original watch into its box along with all the guarantees and into the cupboard – where it stayed for a few more years. Automatic Chronographs are deeply symbolic and much sought after. Rather than keep a universal time, they operate based on your movement. Why they’re sold at a premium with a Swiss stamp of approval and serial number when a simple battery that sends electric currents to a small quartz crystal ensures better timing accuracy, only those who have marked the years with them on their wrist can tell you. The point is, the watch could technically lie in an underground bunker for decades, be excavated, tied to a wrist and immediately bring order to the wearer’s sphere. No battery required. It is however recommended that you don’t do this and sooner get the cogs and barrels turning once every so often if you can. I would wear the watch on a few select occasions but would return it to its leather-bound casing straight after… Or so I thought.

Cleaning the study I came across the empty casing of the watch. My first approach was rational – it must be somewhere – but it rapidly deteriorated into panic as every spot it might have been offered nothing. For two days I stressed over its whereabouts - had it been stolen, when last had I worn it, why hadn’t I packed it back, why couldn’t I remember such important details. It felt like I was staring into the fridge trying to find the thing right in front of you.

On the third, still with an unresolved feeling, I laid a claim and set the insurance wheels in motion.

What should have been a simple claim resulted in consternation. The watch had cost a fair price when I finally worked up the courage to spend the money, and it was pretty specific when I chose it – but what I didn’t know, and apparently neither did the jeweller, was that it was a “Classic Re-edition”. First made in 1948, a limited number of the model had been released in the early 2000s. Now, trying to value and replace it, the rarity had not only made it almost impossible to find, but also unaffordable. My insurers had retained more or less the same replacement value and I hadn’t reevaluated the watch in all the time I had it – so I settled for a payout that was about 1/3 of my missing watch and replaced it with a more conventional, but still stylish, watch. Which my grandchild will inherit, along with this story.

So, first the wallet, followed by the empty watch casing, and then a final twist to the trinity superstition – I found my father’s death certificate. I’m not sure why I struggled to remember the date although I can guess at the fact that it had happened at a time when a lot of contradictions complicated my life and I’d just wanted to move on. The piece of paper in itself is the blandest testament to the fact that you will eventually leave all these things behind and ultimately be reduced to an expulsion of ink declaring you the victim of a single swift blow – in my father’s case: Stroke. Edwin Theodore Kelly. Male. Age 54. Died 24 May 2003.

The coldest moment of all –the Sunday I chose to do all this – 24 May 2009.

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