Thoughts: Lessons from a Clock

The clock in the picture belonged to my great grandparents, on the Drewry side. It’s a late 19^th century gothic mantle clock. From there it was passed down to my grandmother Lassiter, then to my mother, and on my 50^th birthday, it was given to me.

In all its homes, the clock’s simple Victorian mechanics clicked away, the reassuringly reliable click-click of the pendelum, the hourly deep gong of the chimes. Through my early childhood, when its ticking in the room below my bedroom lulled me to sleep at night, to my turbulent teen years, when it’s chimes told me regularly that I was up way too late, to my adulthood when the clock began to be, not just a timepiece, but a connection point to my family and it’s history.

I’m one of the lucky ones in that I remember well all of my grandparents, all of whom were alive into my thirties and forties, and some of my great grandparents. I have pictures of them in my house, and for me, they are not pictures of people not known, but of people I loved and love still, whose lives still touch me, here in my late fifties.

When I was given the clock, I lived in Troutville, Va. My life seemed settled, and the clock in a small way, was something of a symbol of that, but of course, life does not work that way. A few short years later and I was divorced, and my life and work came undone. I moved twice in a few short years there in Botetourt County, then making the decision to move to Vermont to be close to the woman I have come to love here in Vermont.

And the clock moved with me. Carefully packed and set up, Whether I moved myself, or had someone move my belongings, the clock rode in my car, carefully set upright and strapped in so that it’s delicate works and old glass would make the trip intact. And once settled in my new homes, it would be one of the first things set in place, it’s ticking and hourly gongs a taste of stablility in what seemed to me to be a suddenly unstable life.

It did not make the trip to Vermont well.

The clock didn’t seem to have been damaged. It looked fine, but after I set it in place in my study, would it carefully, it would run for a minute or two, and slowly stop. I looked at it (which is something of a laugh, since I know nothing about clocks, and only have an average mechanical sense), read about clocks of that era, but I could find nothing wrong. And unfortunately, at this point in life, I had other priorities for any spare money I might have.

So I left it in place, silent. I told myself that it didn’t matter that much, that what was important was it’s legacy, the fact that it was a connection point. And to some extent, that was true. But still, it nagged at me, and from time to time I would return to it, trying to figure out what was wrong, how I might fix it. Again and again in the nearly three years I have been here, I would stand there, door open on the clock, tracing it’s mechanics, thinking, always failing to fanthom it’s mystery.

Last night, I was looking at it again, and it came to me. Perhaps it was not the clock. Old clocks are a magical mix of mechanics, gravity and physics. They need to be level, both side to side, and front to back.

The clock looked level, as did the piece of furniture it was on, but, I suddenly realized, I live in an old house, built in 1800. NOTHING is level in an old house. Visually it might look that way, because everything might be tilted the same way.

I went back to the project room (my version of a workshop, since my tiny snapshot of a lot has no room for a real workshop), and found my level. I put it on the kitchen counter. it was level. I move the clock to the counter, started the pendelum, and it clicked, as long and steadily as if it’s work had never been interrupted.

Five minutes with the piece of furniture and the level and everything was plumb and right. The clock was back in place, and now, 12 hours later, it continues to echo through the house.

Like so many things we lose in life, often we don’t fully realize how much we miss something or someone, until we have them back. I miss my friends in Roanoke and other places less when I am here, than when I am back with them, enjoying their company and their goodness and the joy of their presence. The same was true of my clock. Last night, as it began to tick happily away, the law of physics making all right with it’s world, I felt a return to mourning, just for a while, about what I had missed in the years before I finally discovered what was wrong.

And I was reminded of a few life lessons along the way.

First, that persistence pays. If I had not kept at it, returning to it again and again, it would have been a museum piece, instead of the living reminder (and timepiece, Rona is always telling me I don’t have enough clocks in the house.) that it once again is.

Second, that often things that seem hard, really aren’t. It was embarassingly easy to fix the clock. I battle depression, which ebbs and flows in my life, and when I am in the midst of it, everything is hard. But most things in life really aren’t hard.

And so the clock that now sits above my head to one side as I write and work and seek work, has taken on yet another connection point, this time not to family, but to an idea that is important to take to heart: Most of life is simpler than we make it.

Good lessons, both.

Now, I just have to get used to the tick-tock again. 

Tom

Poem: Overnight Snow

Overnight Snow

Over night the landscape has changed.
Winter has come, harsh
as an alcoholic's temper tantrum,
the cold fury draining you
like fear.

============

The picture was taken outside West Pawlet. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: The Utter Uselessness of Facts

The Utter Uselessness of Facts

I can remember the facts too clearly,
the quiet afterwards, after
the truth had been spoken
and settled over the room
like death, like a plaque of silent locusts
pausing before the feast,
my heart still, not beating, afraid
to break the silence, afraid
that continuing it's metronomic dance
would give the truth shape, and presence and power, sure
that speaking would dress it in mourning
and parade it around like a manic wrath.

And so, time stopped.
Life stopped.
Love stopped, and

truth, rearranging itself like clouds
on a March wind,
shape shifting with each new word,
each new revelation,
leaving you not bitter,
but breathless
at the utter uselessness of facts.

==============================

The picture is of the window in my kitchen, which somehow made me think of Emily Dickinson. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Fail your way to success.

W.H. Auden said, in one of The Second Coming, one of his most famous poems,  that "things fall apart, the center cannot hold.", but whether you believe that or not, there is no secret that things change. Life, death, sickness, marriage, divorce, a new career, the loss of a job. Things change.

Change is often inconvenient. At least it has been for me. It's often scary and never happens at a good time. (Can someone tell me what a good time would be?).  Our first thought when things change unexpectedly is rarely to jump up and down and say "Oh, Goody!". We are more likely to wring our hands and worry.

That is the way most of us are wired. We want security. We want things to be comfortable, familiar, safe. If only life worked that way.

I have to tell you, I have given up on the idea of comfortable, secure and safe. Don't get me wrong, I have had periods of all three in my life and they were wonderful. But I have learned that mostly, they do not last.

Knowing that means I can either let life's explosions knock me down, or use them as a catalyst for improvement.   I have lost two jobs to layoffs in my life. I am divorced. I've come close to dying twice. My list of unexpected changed and failures could loom pretty large.

And I won't lie to you. Those changes hit me hard at first. I suffered shock in most of those episodes that left me beaten down, unfocused, not much use to anyone.

But the thing is, those were episodes, not who I was, and in each case, I found my way back, and after the initial shock, used those knockdowns. I have been able to say, "OK, this has changed. Why? What do I need to keep from before the change and what do I need to think about changing for the better."

Embrace the change. Get help if you need it. (Heaven knows, I didn't do it all alone.). Get a coach, a mentor, a counselor, a clear headed friend, and embrace it. Grow with it,

Here's the other part of what I have learned. If we let it, change improves us and our circumstances. I'd hate to think what a milktoast of a person I would be without some of the changes I hated and dreaded so much. I am scarred, but stronger. I am wounded, but wiser. I have failed, but I have failed my way to success time and time again.

And I am nothing extraordinary. I am just like you. Know what that means?

You can fail your way to success too.

Creative people often know this instinctively. Because they have drawn or written or composed or painted a lot of bad art to get to the good, final piece. That's what artists do, create, fail, create fail, create and fail again until they get it right. SOmehow though, they find joy in the creative process, even when they don't get it right at first.

That's part of why I think creative people can potentially be great managers. They don't punish people for their failures as long as the failures are not repeated, and are used as a stepping stone to success. They understand that change and failure and experimentation are part of the path to something far, far greater.

People who know me know I am a person of faith. In the bible, my favorite character is Peter, who fails again and again, whose life changes radically when he chooses to follow Jesus, changes again when Christ is crucified, again when he was raised and again at the time before Penticost. What a roller coaster he lived on. yet, in the end, he is portrayed as a great man of God. The keys of the kingdom were handed to Peter of the holy roller coaster.

So, and I am talking to myself as well as anyone here, when change happens, it's OK to let it knock the wind out of you... for a short while. But then it's time to get up and put it that change to work for you. Because it can.

If we let it.

Tom

Passion

Regular readers and a few friends are well aware of my movement away from multi-tasking in recent months. Spawned by my reading and by my own frustration at the apparent lack of progress in my creative work, I have made changes in my work and life, choosing to focus on fewer projects, and to dedicate larger blocks of time to those projects. I have weaned myself away from the constant diving into e-mail and social media, pushing them back to certain, regulated times of day. Changing is a useless task unless you step back from time to time see how you are doing, and so last night I did just that. I thought it might be interesting for you to hear the results as well.

Here's all I did. It won't sound like a lot, but as you will see, these small changes had real impact.

First, I cut out the distraction of e-mail and social media. I hit it in the morning early. I check it at lunch time, and near the end of the day. That was a change for me. Before, when I worked, I generally left e-mail up and had Facebook, Trillian, and Linked In running in the background, so I could respond quickly to anything that came in. A quiet alarm went off when e-mail hit and I would pop to it so I could respond quickly to any client that showed up there. I was always bouncing from thing to thing.

So I went to three times a day. I announced it. In fact, if you get an e-mail from me, the stationary tells you this is what I do and if you need me sooner, to call. How many calls have I had in the two months since I began this? One. It seems that even in this moment by moment world of the internet we live in, and even in the Television field I work in, a few hours for a response is generally just fine with people. Imagine that, the world can live without me for a few hours!

Another part of the shift has been cutting down on the number of projects I work on. At work of course, I have to do what I have to do. But on the creative side I was always bouncing from idea to idea. I'd have a zillion projects going at once in poetry, photography, books, articles, you name it. Divide your available hours of the day by all those projects and the amount of time I spent on each one was... negligible. So how much progress on any one project do you think I made? I bet even your math-challenged souls reading this can figure that one out. Nearly zip.

The third change was to be more conscious about breaking my day into hour(ish) long chunks, each dedicated to a project - a proposal, paperwork, calls to clients, creative work on project X or Y, whatever. After many years of dashing from thing to thing as calls, e-mail and social media dictated, this was a change. Not hard, but it took consciousness on my part to do. Simple awareness.

None of these are earth shattering changes. In fact, they were almost retro kinds of changes, going back to ways I used to work a decade or more ago. They were not hard, did not take tons of effort, just a little consciousness and change.

So what's happened in those two months?

On the work side, I am way more productive. I no longer feel I am always perpetually behind. But with time to focus, less distractions, and chunks of time dedicated to tasks, I find my work is simply better. It gets done faster. Clients are noticing. I have less stress.

It's the same thing on the creative side. I finished a major redo of the Quarry House web site, re-thought and put in place new business procedures, began work on a novel that has lingered in the back of my head for ages with little progress, began to draw again.

So productivity wise, my little experiment is a success. But there was something else I didn't expect.

Passion.

Less Distractions + Fewer Projects + More time dedicated to each project = More Passion for each projects. And let's be honest, don't we all want to have passion for what we are doing?

So that is my experience. If you've made similar changes in your life and work, I'd love to hear your story.

Tom

PS - The picture was taken in Venice. You can click on it for a larger version.

Poem: Wind Shift

Wind Shift

....and just like that, the wind changes,
the clouds are blown in or out,
the thunder cracks the night,

and everything is different,
for better, for worse,
but changed forever,

unexpectedly new,
and in that moment we dance for joy
or curse the gods,

not realizing that what we see now,
that change of wind,
rarely brings the weather we think we see,

but instead,
something
entirely unexpected.

======================

Last night, my love and I were talking about changes in me and in my writing since I have moved to Vermont, and she asked me why I thought they had come about. As I thought, there were several reasons, but at the same time, I got to thinking about how often life brings change, and in the moment it happens, we are thinking it will end one way, when instead, over time, we find God has something entirely different in mind. And from those thoughts, this poem.

The picture was taken just outside Troy, NY. It has nothing to do with anything, but you can click on it to see a larger version.

Poem: The Fence

The Fence

The fence has no paint, worn
from time and weather, broken
from accumulated weakness, grey
with age, a reminder

that change is slow, yet constant
and that we have a choice
of whether to let it in through the gate,
or let it slowly break us

into dust.

==============

Lots of change going on in my life these days, and thinking about it spawned this poem. The picture was taken in Wells, VT. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: While Walking in The Venice Fish Market

While Walking in The Venice Fish Market

At seven in the morning, they are there,
their wares already on the table, over ice,
fresh fish from the black sea,
scallops plucked early in the morning,
displayed like art,

octopus, splayed and glistening,
picked over by housewives and chefs,
gawked at by tourists like yourself,
unaccustomed as you are, so far in the mountains
to seeing sea life quite so alive,

so.... real, writhing in the cool morning air,
so fresh there is no smell, just beauty and promise,
unaware that that very night they will rest
on a table in a sidewalk cafe,and you marvel
in a city and place that makes beauty

even of this simple thing,
a market table, or vegetables on a stand,
where the basic elements of life
shout with joy and light and color, and you wonder
at how you have lived so long

in a place of heaviness and sepia light
and never noticed.

---------------------------

One of the things I was unprepared for when I was in Italy was the food. I thought I knew what Italian food was and I could not have been more wrong. The food there was invariably light and fresh, and night after night I lingered over multiple courses of simple, yet strikingly tasty faire. Every evening's' dinner was something to celebrate. That's not hyperbole, it's fact. The experience has changed how I view food, and what I want in a great meal, or even a simple meal.

Those of you who have been to that part of the world know (and I have heard from enough of you to know many of you have) that part of the reason the food is so good is the freshness of it.

These pictures show the fish market in Venice. Now, we have fresh markets in Virginia and Vermont as well, but typically they are a one day a week affair, where we gather a few vegetables and perhaps some meat, to carry us for a week, while in Venice and other places they are daily markets, and each day people gather their food for the night ahead. There IS a difference and even this long time junk food junkie has to admit, the difference is a marvelous thing.

I feel in love with the food, and with the beauty of the markets, and somehow, I knew a poem or few would emerge from the day spent in and out of them. As always, you can click on the images above and below for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Forever Ice

Forever Ice

Crystalline ice coats every limb and twig,
catching the grey light of early morning,
transforming the dirt path
into a palace drive, an ascent

frozen, cold and stunning,
up and over the mountain,
to the next frozen valley,
the mark of the winter

that has life's landscape
solidly in it's icy grip,
a grip so strong and lasting
that it would be easy to believe

in a forever season.
But God's forever
is not the forever he burdens
on his children, he knows us

and knows we cannot bear
eternity, either warm or frigid,
and so... the seasons,
a change of warmth and light,

of rain and dry,
ever changing, even when,
or perhaps particularly when,
life seems cast in forever ice.

Poem: There are no straight lines

There are no straight lines

Water spills over stones,
dances in the bright sunlight,
torn by rocks and gravity,
speeding towards

the next break in the stream,
where it pools and gently flows,
silent, almost still,
deep and peaceful,

the next bend sounding
a change you cannot see,
but can hear, a rushing
of waterfalls that pull,

always pull the water
down to chaos once again,
veering off to another branch,
like life,

where change does not come
in straight lines,
but is always out of sight,
peace and froth, waiting.

==============

The picture is from a stream near my house in West Pawlet. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: The Fence

The Fence

You walk in the early morning,
through the town rife with history,
the old homes with their white clapboard
punctuated with flowers,
and the unnaturally perfect green grass

until you come to the fence,
once proud and strong
like your own spirit,
but now blown by wind
and worn by age,

its paint flaking,
leaning to one side,
no longer a fortress
but instead a gate waiting
for the next storm
to push it aside

and open the gardens within
to every passerby,
a gateway about to open
the beauty beyond
to everyone,

and suddenly the fence
is more beautiful
in it's fragility,
more perfect
than it was ever meant to be.

==================

The picture was taken in Wells, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: Night Train

Night Train

In the dark hours before midnight, the train whistles
and rumbles through the night, the sound
echoing across the valley, so loud and clear
that it seems to lie just outside your window.

It is only when the weather is about to change
that the sound is so very sharp and vibrant
that it causes you to look out at the starlit night,
the crescent moon and encroaching clouds and wonder

what sort of change might be coming.
Rain, cold and biting to the bone?
Or perhaps the unexpected warmth of Indian summer,
or the blustery wind that whips the leaves from the trees?

The train whistle does not answer.
"I am only the signal of change" it cries
as the brakes squeal against the steel tracks.
"Beware. And be joyful. Both."

===========

The picture was taken near Nace, Virginia. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom