Beaches, Starfish, and Elsa Peretti

Do you own anything from Tiffany & Co.?

I have two pieces: my trusty tank watch (verrry simple stainless with a black-leather matte band) and a starfish charm bracelet by Elsa Peretti (like this one, but with ONLY the starfish charm. I'm a minimalist these days.).

The bracelet is a Christmas gift from about ten years ago and for the past year I’ve been wearing it (sans removal) on the same wrist as my watch. I find that the watch acts as an attractive dam: it keeps the dangly element of the bracelet under control by preventing it from slipping annoyingly down onto my hand.

Only once has the bracelet come off: when my four-year-old son (a future lock-picker?!) undid its clasp without my even noticing. I put the bracelet back on immediately and made a mental note to self: watch out when son is near bracelet.

On Thursday night our whole family went to the theatre in Charlottetown to see Disco Cirque, a combination of Cirque du Soleil (fantastic acrobatics involving two loooong silk pieces hanging from the rafters) and a history of disco music and dance (fab singing and dancing from Canadian performers who gather every summer to perform in Anne of Green Gables: The Musical and another musical revue).

My son sat in my lap for the second act and I casually registered, sometime during Grace Jones’ “Slave to the Rhythm,” that he was fidgeting with my bracelet. We went home to our cottage and it was still on, so I forgot to check that the clasp was secure.

On Friday we went to the beach (so I took off my watch, but not my bracelet) and I eventually did some late-night laundry in the little outdoor laundry shed we have.

On Saturday I woke up to a naked wrist!

I knew where my watch was, but the Peretti bracelet was gone, baby, gone. I flew to the laundry shed to see whether that late-night armful of towels had opened the clasp, scoured the grass en route back to the cottage, but no luck. I stripped the bed and shook out all the sheets, but no luck. I looked under the bed, removed all the cushions from the couch where I had set the late-night laundry.

But no luck.

We all went to the farmer’s market for lunch, replenished our pantry, and then decided to take a peek at the beach, to see whether we might spy the bracelet there. Fortunately we had chosen a rather isolated beach on Friday, so the possibility of a beachcomber finding my bracelet was remote.

But so were *our* chances.

After looking for a half hour, I gave up, waded into the deeper water, and began to weigh whether I should buy a replacement bracelet next Christmas for myself or forget the piece entirely. It had given me pleasure, but it wasn’t my engagement ring, for instance, or my wedding band, both of which have greater sentimental value.

But how I hate to lose something, especially something of quality, because my philosophy is to buy once, and to buy well.

As I disheartedly turned my thoughts to collecting shells, Mr. C waded up to me with a kiss and my bracelet. He had kept up the search (Mr. C reads not only Old English but Old Icelandic, so he’s not easily deterred from a detailed study), and had located my bracelet, twisted in a mound of seaweed, sandy but intact.

I certainly didn’t expect a happy ending and am very happy to turn my Christmas thoughts to a new digital camera. (Suggestions are welcome!)