I inherited a pretty gold bracelet watch from my grandmother. When I see it on my wrist, I remember how it looked on her wrist, how the flesh on her lower arm was loosening from the bone, and her sturdy hands were wrinkled and spotted, with broad, well-tended nails that had never known dish water or dirt.

Last year, after many years, it stopped. It would not wind. I took it to the jeweler, who could not get the needed part, and replaced the works with a battery-operated mechanism. He gave me the old parts in a little plastic bag, which I keep with the watch in a jewelry bag in my jewelry drawer. The watch is in there, ticking away, whether I wear it or not. It no longer needs winding. I miss that.

I like opening and closing the curtains every morning and evening, too, for instance.

Yesterday afternoon I took a nap. I hadn't slept well the night before. I'm not sleeping well these days at all. I dreamt about my grandmother's watch. I was putting it on when, without any warning, the back came off and all the workings, gears and filigree plates and springs, came tumbling out. I tried to gather them up in the right order, in the hope of putting them back, but they scattered across the floor, to my despair. One by one I carefully picked them up. They were beautiful, delicate, gold, some embossed with four-petaled flowers, some engraved with intricate designs. Art. I wondered at them. Then I woke up.

Did I think I was wasting time, napping? Does time spill out if you don't use it? Is every minute a work of art, inside where you don't even see it? Shall I take my grandmother's watch to another jeweler, to see if the old needed part can be found? Can't I rewind and rewind?