One of my cello students wasn’t able to make their lesson today giving me an unexpected hour. Snow has just started falling outside so I am taking the seat next to the wood stove to write. All three dogs are on their sides on the wood floor, happy, as I am, to be near the heat. As I sit here thinking I can hear the off beats of the ticking of all of our clocks. I’m not sure what makes that sound so comforting.
On the mantle of our fireplace sits a clock that belonged to my grandfather. Like my grandfather, a farmer, it isn’t ornate but it is functional. My father could not tell me the story of this clock: he didn’t know how his father came to it because, as he explained, they never had enough money. It spent much of its “adult” life living in my parent’s basement, failing to pass muster and live upstairs among my mother’s modern decor. Gears unused dried out and, much like my grandfather, ground to a halt. After my father died I periodically wandered in his basement trying to recapture some of his essence. When my mother asked everyone to take things that would mean something them and I immediately chose the clock. It seemed that I was rescuing a secret, forgotten treasure of his. After a trip to the clock shop,I brought it home, took down the delicately curved Seth Thomas mantle clock, replaced it with the farm clock, gave a gentle push to the pendulum and its heart began beating again.
To the right of the fireplace stands a different kind of “Grandfather” clock: the real deal. Paul is one of those people who have many things that fascinate them. For him these have varied; at one point in his life he was enamored with planes so he took flying lessons and got his pilot’s license. He was a master cabinet maker and built his own business until he decided to marry his love of music to his love of wood, becoming a luthier. Renaissance man comes to mind when one speaks of Paul. He loves steam trains, baseball and clocks. I think that, to him, clocks are a puzzle to be solved, everything works if everything is in the right place. We were wandering in an antique store when he called me over to look at a cardboard box filled with clock parts: He was pawing through the box, lifting out big brass weights, chimes and a pendulum. Standing next to the box was the casing of a Grandfather clock. It was disemboweled making it look very sad and empty but it had a beautiful hand painted moon dial that was stopped on a half moon. The owner of the shop told us that the clock was about one hundred years old and had been part of one family history. For some reason it did not make the final move and was left behind. There was something very poignant to me about its emptiness. Perhaps it had something to do with the feeling of emptiness I was experiencing as our children began to leave home. We negotiated a price, not knowing if it would even work, and adopted the clock.
Paul and Josh spent hours inspecting the clock and putting it right. The final act was to get the solid brass chimes in place and the moon dial to correctly indicate the moon’s travel through the night sky. When Paul turned the old hands to the hour, a resonate Westminster chime lifted from its now-full belly.
The Grandfather stands in our living room corner surveying all that is around him. There is an air of completeness in the room now and I believe he is happy with us in our home.
We have a German cuckoo clock in our kitchen. Dancers come out and spin to one tune on the half hour and to a new tune on the hour. I bought Paul an old Cottage clock for Christmas this year that sits in our cello shop, the distinct tick welcomes you the moment you walk in the door.
Each of our clocks need attention. Winding every seven days with a beautiful, carved brass key. My grandfather’s clock has a crank with a wooden knob that has to be carefully fit into the square hole on its face before turning to tightness. Our cuckoo’s brass pine cone weights slowly make their way toward the floor each day. We cannot forget our clocks or they, too, will grind to a halt and there will be a deafening silence.
The clocks are from a different era. An era of elegance and of utilitarianism. They are “brown furniture” for sure but I am hopeful that they will, someday, watch over our children’s homes.
Interesting how some things can be time-full and yet timeless.