the big clock

“What time is it?” is a complicated question in our house.  There are so many answers:  Time for you to clean your room!  It’s dinner time.  There’s not time to play.  It’s four-thirty.

There is a wall in our house on which six round clocks are mounted.  A couple of them have swinging pendulums that tick away the seconds.  Each clock has two hands, though despite my best efforts, they won’t keep the same time.  They keep instead a span of time, a range of minutes by which we come and go, wake and sleep, eat and play.  Makes it kind of difficult to gauge how much time we have until, well, anything.

An unfortunate incident with a Nerf gun dart rendered the largest of the clocks inoperable.  No matter how I bent the delicate hands or tinkered with the gears it just wouldn’t click past a particular moment.  Stuck in a time warp.  I took full advantage, setting that clock permanently to five oh five so that it’s always five o’clock not just somewhere, but right here thankyouverymuch.

Something I read last night reminded me that there are seasons to this life.  That this, too, shall pass.

I know there is truth in the temporariness of seasons–both bitter and sweet.  But if my life were the big clock, I wouldn’t mind my pendulum sticking here for awhile.

clockwall

3 comments

  1. “Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
    And do whate’re thou wilt, swift-footed Time.”
    – WS

    1. I love this. I would attempt to commit it to memory, but I fear I would butcher it a thousand ways. Better just to incorporate it into subway or chalkboard art :)

  2. Very nicely said.
    So looking forward to hanging out with you (adults) this weekend!

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