How loud clocks can tick when a room is empty, and one is alone!
from Amy Lowell’s poem “The Blue Scarf”
Are children still taught to tell time in the old-fashioned way now that they have so many electronic devices?
We have clocks visible in every room of the house. In the guest room, we have an old wall clock of my mother’s that ticks so loudly Debby once complained about it. In our bedroom, we have a digital clock on the dresser and Tom has a Yoda clock on his nightstand. We rarely set an alarm because we have two of them whose hollow stomachs don’t allow anyone to sleep in. In the bathroom, we have a wall clock that was a gift from Tom’s grandma, I think. In the living room, every TV device visually blares the time, always. In the office, I can see my computer clock and the clock on the stove. Also in the kitchen, we have a clock we received as a wedding gift when decorative geese were all the rage–it still works, and I’m sure geese and ducks will come back into style one day.
The one pictured above is in the dining room, a gift from Tim that fits in with all the other sunflower decor in there. I can hear it ticking, too, when I’m sitting in a silent house sewing or painting at the dining room table. I’ve known that feeling Amy Lowell describes–when a house is too empty and a clock is too loud. But with the dogs snoozing near me, it’s more a companionable than a lonely sound.
Prompt from FMS Photo A Day.
Owing to a fate that possibly lay on the discarded pile of the next Final Destination, I was trapped in a closet of an empty house. I was trying to figure out where a Tick Tick Tick Tick sound was coming from. I was only 9 years old, my younger brother went over to a friend’s and my parents were taking Buttons for a vet checkup. So, I felt safe going into my closet, because it wasn’t The Wardrobe. (My brother’s room had The Wardrobe, which never really fit no matter where we put it.) But, there was a freezer with a radio on top. It was next to the other door of the closet, which was fine by me because my closet had two doors, so there. I slipped in the closet and bumped the blocked door, which knocked the radio off, that slid between me and freedom. Awaiting rescue from a closet with two blocked doors, listening to the Tick Tick Tick, I wished I was in The Wardrobe instead. I could meet a lion and save a civilization from a mean old witch.
Perhaps a similar fate befell C.S. Lewis as a child, and that’s how the world ended up with that lion.
I love the sunflower clock. Your post inspired me to do a clock census of the house this morning, and I came up with a total of 16 clocks. Some tick, some tock and a lot have the correct time twice a day. Also since I don’t believe in paying more than $20 for a wristwatch, I have an entire drawer of wristwatches. OMG, I just realized … I’m hoarding time!
It’s better to be a time hoarder than a time bandit!