A Sense of Time

            I grew up in a house full of clocks.  No, really.  My parents never saw a clock they didn’t love.  However they only brought home the most interesting or quirky.  Kind of like a clock orphanage.

            Just about every wall in every room had at least one time piece clinging to it.  Not a single one of those clocks contained a battery or electric wire (until the Atomic Clock arrived after we had all grown up).  That means that they are all powered by springs, cogs, gears and pendulums.  In other words, REAL clocks, with beautiful wooden cases and unique faces adorned with numbers in curlicue script or bold roman numerals.  Clocks that ticked at different tempos and volume. 

A visitor to the house might jump from their seat at noon when all the clocks clanged the announcement of a new hour at once.  The Westminster chime of the grandfather clock was regal and slow, like a King marching into the hall.  I can remember patiently waiting below the Cuckoo Clock for up to ten minutes, staring at the little hinged doors so I wouldn’t miss a peek at the brightly colored bird when it popped out to chirp off the time.  So often I would get distracted and be looking away at The Moment, and I would have to wait a whole-nother hour to catch a glimpse of the feathered fellow. My favorite little antique mantel clock banged out the hour like a rapid-fire machine gun, and the chime would be over before you could start counting.

            Every Sunday morning, Dad, in his robe and slippers, would first set his wind-up watch to the standard time.  Then he would move from room to room, cranking, pulling and adjusting each of the pieces.  Dad is tall, but he would use a step stool to safely reach the old ship’s clock above the kitchen door.   On Sundays the freshly wound clocks would chime within a few seconds of each other, but as the week went on their old workings and worn out springs might slow down or speed up time and by Saturday the chimes would spread out over ten minutes.  We always had to estimate the exact time by taking an average of what we saw and heard.  Exact time is overrated.

Dad became pals with one of the few clockworks repairmen in the area.  His sign read The Clock Doctor.  He always had at least one of our time-pieces in his shop for repair or adjustment.  I loved to go with Dad to pick up a newly rehabilitated wall clock, or to drop off the old Grandfather (clock, of course).  While the old guys chatted, I would wander around the dusty, cluttered shop admiring the tiny tools and intricate innards, down to the tiniest pocket watch.  I had a dream of once becoming a time-piece repair person myself.

Our Clock Doctor passed away, and his craft, I’m afraid, is on its deathbed.  Of course there will always be clock fanciers who demand the real thing, and a few true professionals that are expert in the craft of clockworks.  But when you look around you will see mostly fake clocks run by battery or wire.  You can tell by looking at the face.  If there are no key holes for winding, chains with weights or pendulums swinging, you’re looking at a fake.  And use your ears.  Are they ticking?  Chiming doesn’t count because those cheaters can have electronic hourly chimes.

Nowadays people seem more concerned with exact time than the beauty of gracefully passing time.  Digital clocks that are on every other building downtown scream the time down to the minute, and urge you to Hurry!  Hurry, don’t be late!

When was the last time you wound the watch on your wrist (or have you ever)?  Do you even HAVE a watch on your wrist?  The tech generation uses their phones as time-pieces.  My running cohorts are still likely to have time strapped to their wrists, but as of late these watches are much more than that.  The runner’s wrist is often adorned with GPS, beeping every mile traveled,  giving pace per mile, altitude gain, and frankly, taking the simple joy out of getting lost in the woods on your own two feet.

You won’t see anything on my wrist.  I didn’t make a conscious choice - the band broke and I was too lazy to fix the digital timer.  I have found that I’m rather comfortable without it.  I have a decent sense of time.  I know how long most things are going to take and I simply make time for them.  Having grown up with the constant rhythmic cacophony of ticking coming from every room, and the clanging of chimes down to the quarter hour, I think I must be ticking inside by now. 

It is true that my heart beats at about 60 beats per minute when at rest.  Maybe if I look inside my chest I will find springs, cogs and a pendulum marking my time.