Last month, I mentioned taking Papa’s clock down to the shop for repair, as it came to me from their home when Grandma passed away. It hadn’t been wound in a few years. It’s three times older than I am, and let me tell you, after that much time on the job a vacation is in order. Well, it’s back on duty, with its steady tick-tock resounding through my living room.

It’s really nice. I’m very glad to have it, and the other things that make it seem on some level as though these people I loved are still with me. When it chimes, it’s beautiful. But I have to be honest. A small antique table in my condo doesn’t give its voice the same resonnance as Papa’s mantle.

click to enlarge

The clock, the photo of cousin Tim beside it, and the one of me on the TV, barely moved in a quarter century. Our grandparents thought a lot of us, they truly did.

Did I mention that when I was little sometimes I got to climb up there on the hearth and wind it? Yeah, it took ten half-turns for the chime and ten for the movement. When I wound it tonight, it was the same. As a kid I loved clocks; I had a thing for them. I loved winding them, and setting them just so. Even now, I set my computer clock via the Net, then a watch to that, then the clocks in the house. I got this from Papa you know, who liked time to be just so. Though in the end, it’s the most great common divisor of souls.

When the shadow of the sash appeared in the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.

I’ll take good care of it, Papa.