The holidays are here, and all of us are staying up late every night, and sleeping-in each morning, totally oblivious to the rising sun or the chirping birds or the gentle morning breeze.
So, you can imagine our shock when we woke up yesterday morning to find that our bedroom clock had fallen and shattered on the floor! There was glass everywhere. Even as we cleaned the shards, we puzzled over how it could have fallen, and how none of us heard even a small tinkle. My kids came up with weird theories, and we all had a hearty laugh.
Later yesterday, my husband and I went to the supermarket to buy a wall clock for the bedroom. After the usual evaluation of designs, and suitability to the decor, we picked a wooden clock with block numbers and distressed paint. My husband was not entirely convinced about the distressed paint, but I convinced him that the look was in.
Once we got back home, we affixed a battery and mounted the clock on the wall. It looked rather nice. When I read the time this morning, I realized that the clock was showing 2.20, but soon forgot about it as I got busy in the kitchen.
Later in the day, my husband called me and told me that the clock was going backwards. He had noticed that the clock was showing the wrong time and had reset it, only to realize that the clock was moving backwards.
It was oddly unsettling to see that the clock was moving back in time. When it was mid afternoon, our clock had travelled back to 9 am. I tried to remember what I was doing at 9 am.
I couldn’t exactly remember, I only had this realization that ‘that’ moment in time was gone, it would never ever come back, even if I tried to turn back the clock.
I suddenly felt very wise, and passed on this wisdom to my children, asking them to make the best use of the here and the now. They laughed and muttered that mom’s in one of her philosophical moods. They hugged me and walked away.
But this clock gave me pause, to value my time and to value each day, for I can wind back the clock, but never time itself.
Simple Moments of Life 