Tick Tock
Mood: Reflective
Listening to: Tick Tock Tick Tock
On my wall I have a clock.
It does not keep accurate time, it does not match anything else in my house, and it really is as ugly as sin.
It is square, with faux wood frame in mission brown with black highlights. The face is gold, and very closely resembles the face of one of those chunky gold watches that scary, leering old men tend to wear.
But I can't bring myself to part with it.
I've been trying to figure out why. I'm not one of those people who can't part with things. Particularly things that are past their useful life.
Realistically, what is the point of having a clock that doesn't tell the correct time, and loses / gains time seemingly at will?
But like everything I guess, the clock has it's own story to tell.
It was given to my parents when they got married, just before they moved into their first house.
My mum was pregnant with me when they moved in, and I can imagine the joy with which they would have unpacked their 70's inspired furnishings, and settled into their new life together.
Not too long after that I came along. The gentle but firm ticking of that clock is part of the soundtrack to my early life. I remember listening to it as I lay on the patchwork of carpets that my Uncle had laid, as my parents couldn't afford to carpet the house straight away. Tracing the various patterns and feeling so very safe and calm.
I remember learning to read at the table under the clock, the tick, tick, tick, working with me to feel the rhythm of the rhymes. I remember sitting in tears one night, because I didn't know how to tell the time, and there was going to be a test the next day. My dad sitting so patiently with me, drawing me onto his knee and comforting me till I calmed down, then explaining what the big hand and the little hand meant. On our clock.
The arguments that my parents and I had about staying up just half an hour longer than my younger siblings. The argument itself could win me up to an hour, two hours if it got really nasty.
Watching the hands creep as I waited for a boy to call... which they never did! Damn boys!
When my parents moved house, a few years ago now, they were going to get rid of the clock. They got rid of a lot of the old things actually, and treated themselves to new furnishings and bits and pieces. The rest went to St Vincent de Paul.
I just couldn't face the thought of someone else taking our clock home and hanging it on their wall. It's OUR clock! It has a personality all of its own. It's our family clock! So I asked if I could have it, and among much commentary from the exended family on the fact that it doesn't work, and some very inventive descriptions of how ugly it is, I packed it lovingly on the front seat of my car and took it home.
So now it hangs in my lounge room. I can watch it while I'm waiting for a boy to ring... I can listen to it while I lie on the carpet and trace the patterns in my cobwebby roof. It gives me a feeling of grounding, of familiarity, and of home to have it on my wall. For all that it clashes and runs inaccurately. I look at it, and it calms me. Sentimental, but that's just the way it is.
