I’ve been thinking a lot about clocks this week – specifically, family clocks.
I have one that’s been in my family for at least three generations, maybe longer. It’s an American steeple clock — so-called because the wooden case is church-like in shape, with two finials (steeples) flanking the clock face. It belonged to my grandparents. I can remember as a child being enchanted by the little door in the front that you could open to see the gold pendulum ticking back and forth inside. The clock sat in the living room, on top of the cherry bureau where my grandmother kept photo albums (one for each grandchild) and old-fashioned games like tiddley-winks and pick-up sticks. Sometimes if I woke in the middle of the night, I would hear it chime the hours and I would feel safe in the dark, knowing it kept watch.
The thing is, you have to wind a clock like that. And it doesn’t only chime at night. The relentless ticking and hourly tolling is a constant presence in a house. After my mother gave the clock to me, I decided I didn’t want to hear its voice quite so loudly. I moved it to a back room and then to an even more distant room, and finally to a closet where – I’m ashamed to say – I forgot about it. But after talking with horologist David Rooney for the first episode our "Deep Time series," it suddenly seems unbearably sad that I haven't kept that audible connection to my grandparents alive.
David says clocks can be our jailers and time-wardens. Like it or not, they are also part of us — companions on our journey through time. As for my grandparents’ clock – I just rewound it.
—Anne