Ironic concept—I never have enough time to work on my timepieces.
They keep time, but I can’t keep time in my hand.
I have been working on fixing some pocket watches this weekend,
Including one that was made possibly before my grandparents existed
When the telephone and telegraph were the lifechanging internets of their world,
When the big news was that it only took 12 days for a ship to come from China!
So there is more than a century between me and the first owner of the watch.
It runs and keeps time again, after so much time has passed.
Just like me, it is old, but it runs and keeps time.
The hands that once pulled it from a vest pocket
Have long turned to dust.
He never knew that I would be tinkering with it,
And actually
He never knew that there would be a me.
But I feel that time has entrusted me with a timepiece
To keep it running and in good condition at least until my time is up.
It has a loud tick sound
Just like a human heart
And a beautiful face
Just like so many human faces.
And it is golden, just like so many human prospects.
You know that the owner carried it in good times and bad.
Perhaps he was a doctor and used the watch at the bedsides of the sick and dying.
Perhaps he was a businessman who checked this watch so he didn’t miss his commuter train
Or a laborer, or a farmer, or something else.
He wore it to weddings and funerals
And many family gatherings, or so I hope.
But we know it likely belonged to a man,
As ladies didn’t have such watches back then.
But the peace of holding time in my hand
In a timepiece that transcends lifetimes
Makes holding the timepiece a moment of eternity
That transcends his life then and my life now.
And in my own finitude
I hold in my hand something that lasts beyond my mortality.
And will be held in another hand someday
Who will make it tick and perhaps think about what might have made me tick.
Comments