April 23, 2014
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T is for Time Pieces
Time in reality is mathematical, measured, seconds, minutes, hours, days, years decades, centuries m millenniums, eons, infinity..tick, tick. tick, a grandfather clock sounds with chimes, like the one at my mother in laws hallway, chiming on the hour and a short ding every 15 minutes.
Oh those rich tones, majestic tall dark wood, heavy brass chimes behind etched glass panel, that every few days had to be pulled from the bottom to the top. Thinking of a watchmaker’s shop like the one in which Corrie Ten Boom grew up, or the very Canadian announcement at the top of the hour by National Research Council time signal. “The beginning of the long dash following ten seconds of silence indicates exactly 11 o'clock, Mountain Standard Time” heard every day since November 5, 1939 on CBC Radio.Now often the only clock ticking I hear is the whirring of the battery operated one in my kitchen.
With the advances of technologies in recent years, the telling of time has taken many different forms, much of which I fail to understand. Included are digital watches, cell phones, ipads, and my Mac lap top that announces the time on the hour and often when I forget about it, such as the middle of a class lecture.
We often would set alarms to wake up in the morning….those old, silver round wind up, bed side clocks with bells on the top; or small folding travel ones in leather cases and square faces, that we could prop bedside in triangular form
and glance in the middle of the night, vaguely figuring out it was 5 AM from the position of the green. small arms and two hours before needing to rise. The pocket watch with the gold cover that my husband had as a railway engineer, finely tuned, and used to time all my contractions during labour with our first child.Now where do these exist except as antiques or in the bottom of jewelry cases.
There has been always a watch band on my left wrist and I will miss it if not there looking at the white mark and summer tan lines. This simple digital watch, black and purple band inherited from my daughter, that is so familiar but beeps at 806 AM because I could not figure how to change it… BUT it beeps several times and usually reminds me that I am running late for work or need to be walking out of the house if I am to get to my Tuesday morning swim class.
“Late, get going!” it reminds me, but I protest, “ there is just one more thing to do….breakfast can be carried in the yogurt container and coffee mug ready” Best of intentions but often chronically late..that is me and the changes of clocks and watches.
