clocks | Pujakins

This Love Note marks a milestone: Number 2000 in total over a period of many years, at 52 a year. You can do the math how many that is. I am eternally grateful to my readers and to the invisibles who have had a hand in the Notes’ creation.

Heartwings says, “Waste not, want not; use whatever time you have wisely.”

When as a child I visited my grandmother in her summer home in Beverly farms, I would stand by the big cuckoo clock in the hall to see the bird emerge. I loved it! I even remember being very little and someone lifting me to see the bird up close. My dear grandmother would even advance the hands to make it sound the hour ahead, just for me. Perhaps that was the beginning of my fascination with time and clocks. All these years later, its passage remains a mystery.

I remember as a child waking up on sunny summer mornings and thinking about how I had a whole day to play, and what fun that would be. Indeed, the hours stretched out and brought me much joy as I amused myself. An only child until I was eight, I had developed a good ability to entertain myself. I was never lonely, though I was mostly alone unless an adult was interested in playing with me, and mostly they weren’t, so my time was my own.

Now, some eighty years later when I wake up on any morning, whatever the time of year, I go over in my mind what I need to get done, not to mention what’s left over to do from the day before. (Usually, I had planned more than I could accomplish.) Then as I get ready, beginning with my exercises, I prioritize my “to do” list. It’s simpler than it used to be. Eighty years holds a world of change, and hopefully I have learned what’s important.

Children tend to live as human beings; adults as human doings. And time is at the center of the action in either stage of life. It seems there is only so much of it—sixty seconds make a minute, or so they say. However, how do you feel after holding your breath for sixty seconds or laughing for the same amount of time? Do they feel the same? That’s the odd thing about time. It’s supposed to measure the same, yet it does not, at least in my experience feel that way. Another example is going somewhere versus coming back, which feels much shorter, clocks to the contrary.

Stephen and I have always collected interesting clocks. Our small apartment is full of them. Most of them are synchronized, more or less, within five or so minutes. Several display the accurate time, and others may lag a bit, depending on the age of their batteries. However, I know which ones are correct. Also, I like seeing what time it is whenever I feel like it, even without wearing a watch—mine is currently in need of batteries. I’m not sure I get any more done by looking, but I do like to know. Recently I came across a study that showed that the heart’s activity influences our perception of time as it passes. Time is a conundrum it’s fun to explore.

Enjoy whatever time you have and don’t try to save it at the price of your joy.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

How do you feel about time? Do you take your time? Or do you find there’s never enough? How’s your time management. Write and tell me about your relationship with time. I so love to hear from readers. Please write me at tashahal@gmail.com. You can see more love notes on my website www.heartwingsandfriends.com, or see my blog at https://tashasperspective.com.

The single metal hour hand lay on the table in front of me. Stephen and I had been playing with an old clock in an effort to get it to work. However, once the hands become loosened from the mechanism that counts off the minutes, even if it still ticks, the clock is effectively broken. We took the clock apart and kept the face to use for an art project. Gazing at the pointed hour hand I wished I could think of a way to put it to use. Finally I gave it to Stephen, thinking he might be able to make use of it in a collage.

The hand of time touches us all. Sometime it strokes gently, lulling us into complacency until we sit up and take notice. “Where did the time go?” we say and look around us to see if we can locate the lost minutes, hours or years. At other times it seems to have an iron grip on us, passing so slowly we want to scream in frustration. It’s definitely fickle and frolicsome, turning hair grey when our backs are turned. ave written a lot of poetry about time and its effects.

I have found that time is strangely elastic. It can stretch or shrink to suit how I am feeling. When I’m impatient, it seems to pass ever so much more slowly than when I am not thinking about it at all, but fully engaged in what I am doing. I remember once playing music with a friend during our lunch hour. We met in the room set aside for time off and began to tune our instruments. Then we started to play. I was fully engaged in the extraordinary joy of it. Eventually I came to and began to worry that we had overstayed our time. When I looked at the clock I was amazed. It seemed we had entered a timelessness that stretched on and on, yet in real time we had been playing music for only half an hour.

The older I get the more conscious I am of the passage of time. Perhaps that is because there is less and less of it left to me with each passing year. Although almost nobody knows their expiration date, we all know that there is a limit to the time we have left, regardless how long or how short. I do not feel anxious or fearful about my personal duration; it’s just that I wish to make the best use of whatever time remains to me. Most have heard about one’s so-called bucket list. I gave that up a while ago. I prefer to content myself with making the most of every day I have. That gives me a better focus.

It’s odd how we speak of spending time. Minutes and hours are not real like dollars and cents. Yet often we treat time as though it was tangible–to be stored up or spent or hoarded or wasted. I remember my delight as a child at the thought of having a whole afternoon to do what I liked. Now I am grateful to have an hour or two when I might do something meaningless as opposed to productive. Sometimes I feel I am stealing time from what I ought to be doing. Then I remind myself that it is my time to do with as I wish, and I am a not a human doing but a human being.