Timepiece
I have never liked clocks. The tracking of seconds, minutes, and hours. The movements, the displays, the sounds. The tics, the tocs, the winding, the chimes. Don’t even get me started on the alarm. All reminders of the passing of time. Why do I hate this so much?
When I was 12, my parents got a grandfather clock. Not the tall kind that stands on the floor but the smaller, cabinet-looking kind that hangs on the wall. The kind that ticks and tocks loudly and chimes every 15 minutes, playing the complete Westminster Quarters with the corresponding tolls, every hour on the hour. My grandparents had one of these kinds of clocks which I had laid awake under, on their Davenport, experiencing those chimes and tocs, many times before. When my mom and aunt admired this clock, my sweet grandparents gifted them with identical versions of their very own. I thought at the time, it wouldn’t be so bad, because I would not be sleeping under it, but in my room, with the door closed. How bad could it be?
The first night of having this clock in our living room coincided with the night before I would start middle school. Now, to be fair, I was pretty anxious about starting this new school and likely would have had a hard time sleeping anyway. But this particular night I would be haunted, like Ebenezer Scrooge himself, at regular intervals, by this clock. Even down the stairs and behind my hollow-core door.
Eventually, I got used to this clock. It became a part of the soundtrack of my teenage years. When my grandparents died there was a bit of an argument between cousins about who would get their clock, an argument that I was more than happy not to participate in. Now when I visit my brother I ask that he turn the chimes off when I’m there. Yes, you can turn the chimes off. Oh, how I wish I would have known that when I was 12!
I have tried from time to time to wear a watch. My first watch was dainty and sweet but its presence on my wrist made me anxious. What time was it? How much time was left? Was there enough? Why was this taking so long? Soon I found myself placing my watch on my dressing table and never wearing it again.
In high school, we all had to have a clock radio. A clock that is also a radio? That sounded just about perfect to me. And while I did enjoy that radio I truly hated the lighted digital display that illuminated my face as I was trying to sleep.
When I grew up and got my own house I gave little or no thought to clocks. Between the display on the oven and the alarm clock I guess I managed my schedule okay. Then one day I had some friends over. We chatted the evening away and then someone asked about the time. We all looked around my living room for a clock. I went to the kitchen to check the oven and reported the time. But my friends could not believe that I had no clocks in my house. In an effort to normalize life for my houseguests I got a clock for the living room. I only really appreciated having it when it was time to teach my children to read it. Otherwise, I paid it little attention. Later my sister in law would give me an analog clock that replaced the numbers with different kinds of sushi. Now that is a clock I could appreciate. I don’t think any of us tell time by it but it hangs prominently in my kitchen and is a great conversation starter.
The cell phone is a beautiful thing for those of us who hate the clock. You can look at it when you want but otherwise, it leaves you alone. No movements, no tracking, no sounds. Lovely. Then today I read an article about all the good reasons to move your cell phone to another room while you sleep. No big deal unless you use this phone as an alarm clock. Well, that’s easy. Just get an alarm clock! That doesn’t light up, make sounds, or make itself known in any way. So I looked high and low for this clock and found I could have exactly this, in a cute little travel alarm clock, for $9 on Amazon. It is small and functional and unobtrusive and I am going to work hard at not hating it.
