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

Decisions, Decisions

In a year we have 365 days, which translates to 8736 hours or 524,160 minutes. In a single 24 hour day we have 1,440 minutes.

Are we willing to spend 30 minutes a day to reach our desires in life? If so, we are on the path. If not, the odds are, in a world where the average person spends hours a day on media like TV and the internet instead of preparing for their sucess, we won't.

Scary huh? Because it reminds us that so much of our success is our choice, our decision. If you thought an hour less TV would make the difference, would it be worth giving up?

Thoughts: On gifts

Monday evening I finished a wedding present for a pair of new friends I have made up here in Vermont. It's a few days late, but fortunately, they were not at all put out when I drove it by that night.

For several weeks, I have had it in my mind that I wanted to do a wedding poem for them, linking it to a photograph. The problem was that they were new friends. I don't have a long history with them, and that made writing a poem that was anywhere close to their heart difficult, but over the past few weeks, I have slowly learned enough of their life's journeys to begin, and then, in of all places, Disney World, I discovered an image that gave me the title and concept to build on.

Over the next week or two, as the wedding day approached, then arrived, I wrote and tinkered until I got it where I wanted it - something especially done for the two of them, so personal and private that it will likely never appear here unless they give their OK down the road somewhere.

Yesterday afternoon I spent with my love, putzing around antique stores. In one of them, I saw several hand-stitched samplers, and it occurred to me how, for so many, the idea of created gifts is no longer part of our every day life.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, many home grown seamstresses, writers and artists created something unique and handmade for people on their birthdays, Christmas, weddings and other special occaisions. Because nearly everyone came from a background where a home-grown gift was understood for the work, effort, focus and sacrifice it represented, such gifts were valued for the time and effort that went in to them. In a real sense, we realized that though perhaps not perfect things, these were gifts of the heart and hand, and they were valued deeply.

Today however, many of us never MAKE anything. And anything we make can probably be done "better" in some factory in China or Thailand. But there is, I think, still a place for the created gift, the gift you make, be it art or music or even the perfect Rice Krispy treats. For some reason we've gotten away from giving those kinds of gifts and go more towards the store bought (with requisite return tag if it's not just the perfect thing), or even money.

There is nothing wrong with the gifts we give, fresh from the stores in their perfectly wrapped boxes, but neither is there anything wrong with the the heart-given creation. They each have value, albeit value of different types.

A month ago, my son turned 11. I bought him a couple of presents, and wrapped them. I am famously bad at wrapping presents. Famously bad, as in one of the family jokes. But one of his gifts, I managed to wrap well. Really well. So well, he had a hard time believing I had done it. And for a moment, something had been lost, that knowledge of the personal touch. He was actually dissapointed at his perfectly wrapped box. That's when I knew he certainly got it - that things done personally need not be perfect to be of great value.

One of the things I am discovering here in Vermont, is how much of that personal touch still lives here. Perhaps it is the artistic nature that pervades the area, or the slower pace of life (and trust me, Southerners like me get a reputation for slow, but we are not in Vermonter's class.), or the fact that as a group, Vermonters seem to have an apprecation of time vs money that is a healthy thing.

Whatever the reason, I am glad for it. As someone who likes creating and giving personal things that take more time than money, and as someone who at times gets those same kinds of gifts. Somehow, it makes life richer.

Tom

PS - The picture is of some locally produced maple syrup. Did you know it takes 40 gallons of sap slow boiled and distilled over wood fires to make a single gallon of syrup? But there is no comparison to real maple syrup to the store bought mass produced version we so often buy. The difference is worth the extra money, and carries with it, the gift of time.

Poem: Time

Time

Ageless as silence, this peace
bathed in shadows and the song
of water, spilling out of the earth
and falling over stones,

singing of lives past and present, all flowing
like time, liquid, one moment languid,
then in a torrent, not
of activity, but thought and emotion,

so powerful it can sweep you away,
or slowly erode the stone beneath your feet,
or revive you, like a May shower
after the heat of the day.

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

Tom

Unitasking

I just read a wonderful article in Today's Christian Woman about "Unitasking". This is the opposite of the rage today: multitasking. It particularly hit home because for the past couple of days I have been working out of my house, primarily on a single project - web site upgrades to my company's site. I've been writing, gathering links to use, going through pictures to use, marshalling the guys at the ad agency, all that stuff, with very few interruptions, and I am reminded of how much I like being able to focus on one project for a period of time. It breeds a continuity that makes for better work, no matter what the project, I think.

I think sometimes too we lose something in our personal lives by multitasking all the time. I went to a musical program Tuesday night with my daughter. She and her friends most of whom were at the show as well, were texting all through the performance. For the most part my daughter ignored the text messages and really, really took in the show. But what about all those kids texting throughout? What did they miss? Some pretty amazing stuff, because that's what happens when your attention is divided. So now when we compute, watch TV and carry on a conversation, we are doing a lot of things, but none of them as well. We miss stuff on TV, or miss stuff in the conversation, or.... well you get the idea.

I think a big reason we don't pray well into today's world, or study enough to have a satisfying and effective spiritual life is that we are so caught in the false promise of multitasking that we cannot focus and let the spirit work on us and in us. And so we never settle down and just let the word and spirit penetrate us and soak in as it should.

Don't get me wrong. There is a place for multitasking in life. At times, it's great. On an average day I bounce from thing to thing to thing in work and it's exhilarating to do sometimes, and stuff DOES get done. But to live a life where we only multitask, and never stop to unitask, I think leaves us poorer on lots of fronts, particularly on the relational and spiritual. And aren't they the most important.

I used to be the worst at this, I have to tell you. I was always doing 2-3 things at once. But I've learned the falseness of it, and the damage it can do to actually relating to people and to God - the real stuff of life. So now I multi task far less, and actually work at doing it less often, and having more time to focus on the task, person or thought at hand.

An odd thing I am learning as I do this. Unitasking is not really less efficient. It's just that work gets done differently. There's less appearance of action and progress, but look over a period of a month or more, and the same amount of work gets done (and often better) with I multi task less. THAT has been a surprise to me, but I can see it.

Not preaching here, but it's something to think about, and the article is what got me thinking.

Tom

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PS - The photo is of my son, in a tearoom in Tintagle, England. It was a day where we focused on the moment, whatever it was, - no cell phones, no distractions, and was one of the most simple, and delightful of days, ever, one we still talk about often, even though it was over a year ago.