The Red Clock
As we all know, humans are creatures of habit. Witness our experience when the red kitchen clock I’ve owned for more than 30 years died last week. We keep looking at the nail in the wall for the time.
Admittedly, I had a certain nostalgia for that clock. It was the first thing I ever charged on a credit card right after I got out of college. I remember going to The Cellar in Macy’s in New York City and feeling oh, so grown up. I’ve schlepped that clock all over the country. It’s lived in my homes in New York City, Bridgeport, Kansas City, southeastern Washington state, and Boston. That red clock has witnessed a lot.
When I brought it home the first time, I hung it low on a kitchen wall-space. I told my then housemate that the red reminded me that time was valuable, and low on the wall meant it was also unimportant. Over the years, I’ve babied my clock. The thingies that held the battery oxidized over and over again. I fixed it. A fix-it friend fixed it. The top had a chip from when it fell off the wall once and bounced. It kept great time.
My red clock has been a metaphor for my relationship with time over the years. Time is a funny thing for humans. We have a love/hate relationship with time.
But the thing is: time is the great equalizer. We all have the same amount of time. 24 precious hours in any given day. And it doesn’t matter if you’re the Sheik of Araby or Little Miss Thang. Every one of us has the same 525,600 minutes in a year.
The issue is not time itself, but how we choose to spend our time. The amazing thing is that time, as we “spend” it, is a great illusion. The only real time there is happens to be Now. This now, and then the next now. That red clock reminded me of Now.
Fortunately for the Universe in its whirl, Amazon had a slew of red kitchen clocks to choose from and a new one is winging its red way to me right now. It will go on the kitchen wall, and if it lasts as long as the former one, I’ll be 81 when I need a new one.
There’s no time like the present, and there’s no present like the time.
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February 22, 2010 8:13 am
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