tick-tock

My adorable aunt and uncle are moving from Michigan to Ocala soon. It will be a huge change for them. Their house is so far north that it stays light there in the summer until 10:00 p.m. It starts snowing in November and does not stop until after Easter some years.

But they live on top of a hill that overlooks a lake and I love to go visit. I walk for hours in the woods and stare at the deer I run into and examine the moss and the rotting fallen trees and inhale the aromas of the forest. At sunset the sun melts into the lake and everything glows amber and ocher and the brilliance creeps across the hillside, igniting all the ancient trees.

Night is so dark that the sky literally lights up and vibrates with stars--the most spectacular stars I have ever seen in my life. And if you sit outside for five minutes you are guaranteed to see a falling star streak across the darkness. No exceptions. I love to sit on the deck at night and just listen. I will miss the retreat it has offered me all these years. I know this has been a painful decision for them. Aunt Sue refers to the new house as their "final home."

I am happy that they are moving down because I don't think Uncle Paul can take another winter watching Aunt Sue shovel snow because his heart condition will not allow it. He is a terminally chivalrous man and the sight of his beloved slogging through the snow with a shovel in her petite hands is more than he can stand.

Aunt Sue called me last night and asked me what I want from their house. We have already done this once--when they sold their home in Ohio and moved full-time to their summer retreat in Michigan. I sighed and told her she has a new house waiting in Florida that will easily accommodate all her treasures so stop trying to give them away. I could hear their multitude of clocks ticking in the background as she paused. Uncle Paul is a clock nut and I suppose I have inherited this affliction. My house is likewise alive with the unique pulses of the many clocks that live here.

My latest addition is the grandfather clock given to me by my friend Mary's sister. Mary passed away unexpectedly in June and had no close relatives other than her sister who is in her 70s. Neither of them had children and the only family they have are very distant and estranged. There had been a battle over another relative's estate years ago that culminated in a lengthy and bitter lawsuit. So the only specifics in Mary's will were a detailed list of people who were forbidden from ever inheriting any of her stuff. They were all related to her. She left everything to her sister, the theatre where she volunteered and some of her friends, mostly actors. This came as no surprise to me. Mary spent most of her life in the theatre and we were her family, the one she chose. Isn't the family you choose really your true family? I think so.

It has been my experience that people often go insane when deaths occur in the family. The scramble to claim stuff always seems nuts to me. It's as if we forget that we will be dust soon too and so what is the point of fighting over Grandma's serving platter, really? It's all so temporary, all of it.

So after Mary died, I got a phone call from her sister who lives in Orlando. Helen was very pragmatic about it all.

"Everything I already own will probably end up at Goodwill. I have a house full of furniture and I don't need anything from Mary's house, so before we have an estate sale, I was wondering if you want her grandfather clock? I think she would have wanted you to have it."

So I went to pick it up and I noticed it had a thick wire attached to the back of it. Helen explained that Mary had fashioned the wire and attached it when she lived in San Francisco in the 1960s and was concerned it would tip over in the event of an earthquake. I left the wire on the clock.

The clock stands in the corner of my dining room and so we are face-to-face whenever I venture out of the den which is where I spend most of my days writing, muttering, daydreaming.

The clock has a kind, warm face. Sometimes I feel it sigh when I open its door to lift the great weights and pull the chains to wind it once a week. The loud bonging and chiming drives everyone else in the house crazy, so at night I silence the Big Ben and the Westminster chimes.

But in the mornings after everyone has gone off to school and work, the clock and I have at it. I release the silencer chains and the clock ticks and tocks and chimes and bongs, making merry music all day long. When everyone returns home in the evening, the clock is silent but for its ticking, and we are co-conspirators. No one knows what we two did all day long and that's the way it should be. We keep each other from feeling lonely, and it accompanies me as I work or don't work, reminding me always of the time, and sometimes I can hear it whispering: "The day is slipping away. Oh, hurry, hurry!"