Here are four Local Observations that deal with clocks in a range of ways.
Hickory Dickory Dock, I Searched the House for Clocks
For today’s observation, I did exactly what the title said, and tried to think of every timepiece in my house. This is the list I came up with: the stove, the microwave, all the computers, both tablets, all three smartphones (mine, my dad’s and my mom’s), my brother’s watch, the watch in my drawer which I never wear, and an assortment of timers. I suspect that both my parents have functioning watches stashed away in drawers as well.
I wonder what conclusions might be drawn from this list. What is an average number of timepieces in a house with four people in today’s society? Where do we fall in comparison? We don’t have clocks in the bedrooms because we use our phones and tablets, which brings the overall number of clocks down. If we lived a couple hundred years ago, though, we might only have one timepiece for the whole house. One conclusion that would be drawn by those living centuries ago would certainly be the fact that in comparison, I am quite rich.
The clock struck one so off I’ll run, hickory dickory dock.
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Not long before typing this, I was sitting at the dining table, reading my psychology textbook, trying to focus. Yet, as every second goes by, I can hear the ticking of the watch left out on the table from late last night. Trying hard to ignore the ticking, I place it under the pillow to try and focus my attention on the textbook. The ticking continues, louder now as my attention increases towards this annoying rhythm. I let it progress, listening as I sit, tick-tick-tick. The ticks seem to come so rapidly as though bullets flying at me, tick-tick-tick. I found my mind escaping me to join in with the ticking, progressing through time as though frozen. Yet, I know that with every passing tick, a second has escaped my grasp. But how can that be, I am stuck in this moment, following the rhythm?
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2 o’clock,
The snow falls hard.
2 o’clock,
Blankets wrapped around me.
2 o’clock,
Mesmerized by the sight outside my window.
2 o’clock,
Can I be done school now?
2 o’clcok,
So much to do.
2 o’clock,
The snow falls hard and so do I.
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9:54 pm- Pandemic time is a weird thing. The days have blurred together, the only differentiating factor between them being feeling. Today was a good day. Yesterday was not, and if you were to ask me what Monday was like, honestly, I could not tell you.
9:56 pm- It's funny how time can stand still in moments and speed up in others. As I think back to what an unprecedented and uncertain summer was, I am reminded of moments of peace, sitting on my dock in Calabogie, sipping hot coffee made from the same old percolator my grandmother had when she was a girl. The dogs splashing through the shallow water beside me, as my dad and grandma speak in hushed tones about the future.
10:01 pm- The future is a wild concept, one in which I find myself often occupied with trying to predict. This life I am living now, certainly is not the one I thought I would be living when I graduated from high school in 2015. It is not the life I imagined when I moved to Halifax, nor the one I envisioned when I moved home from Halifax, just a year later. Or when I decided to pursue interior design at Algonquin College the following year. I don’t think this life we are living as a collective is what any of us imagined, but I take solace in the fact that I am in fact still living.
10:07 pm- In my Nanny’s (my maternal grandmother) house, there is a clock she has had in her kitchen since I was a toddler. It echoes down the hall and floats into the guest bedroom I occupy. It used to keep me awake when I would sleep over with its constant and dependable ticking but as I sit here contemplating the effects of time, I find myself missing that clock. So consumed by my dislike of it, I had not noticed its soothing effects. That clock was my melody for sleep. It was a siren, distracting me with its song so that I too could rest with the others in the house. My Nanny is the epitome of grace, elegance and warmth, and her house reflects that. She is a woman who can almost instantly make me feel safe, and now with the pandemic creating space between us, I realize how much I miss her and that damn stupid, annoying clock.
