I have a clock on my wall...I love it...but...truth be known...it never runs properly...I try to wind it evenly...There are two gears...and even when I try to keep it balanced...it always runs ahead of schedule...At the end of it's thirty day run...it is at least two hours ahead of schedule...It is a concrete metaphor for the way that I run...way ahead of schedule...Even when I am wound evenly...I am wound too tight...and..so...I love it more...because I see myself whenever I look at it...
Someone I was very close to...had a clock that bore his name...It moved along in perfect time...and had a very quiet whirring sound...so quiet...that many never knew it was there...He was very ill...and as his illness progressed...the clock slowed...until one day...the moment he died...At that moment the clock stopped...and never ran again...I know this...because I was there...
I am eternally at peace with the realities of the inner workings of things...people...and relationships....I see beauty in the things that others see as flaws...I am flawed...seeing flaws elsewhere fills me with comfort...it offers a sense of peace...because I will never be perfect....and I don't want perfect...I want human...
Having said this...I find that in my life there are many clocks that surround me...and many of them are empty...They represent time ticking away...but if you were to open the body...there are no gears...People are pointing at it...saying...we'd better hurry...or...we'd better slow down...They say...it will come in time...or...time is running out...Yet...I wonder...how can anything be happening when the guts are not there...they are gone...they were never there...someone stole them....
Just because a clock presents as a clock...doesn't mean that it works like one...Sometimes the force of a hand does nothing to change how it runs...and without the gears...how can anyone expect it to run at all? I think sometimes a clock isn't about telling time...Sometimes a clock whispers how things are not working...how a life moves forward and how it often just stops...I believe that we have a very intimate relationship with clocks...they remind us of how much time we have left...
I suppose I should fear the timepieces that fill my life...I should try and stifle my inner clock...but why? What purpose would that serve...It is the things I own that just sit...that express what is stale and wasting in my life...The clock on my wall...although endlessly ahead of schedule...is the only belonging I have that never seems to collect dust...It is always moving and reminding me that this too shall pass...and several hours from now...this pain or discomfort will be replaced with other experiences...
Maybe I need another on my wall...so that my house will be filled with the beating and chiming of two...instead of just one that is wound too tight...until then...there is just one clock...
Tick tock...tick tock...
No comments:
Post a Comment