February 18 2004, 01:09 AM The Calm Persistent Click

We have put a clock in the room that we sleep in.

The significance of this is probably not immediately apparent; the room that we sleep in is very quiet. It is well sheltered from most of the noises of our semi-urban living. In that we have been trying to also reduce the general amount of noise in our home, at night, the room that we sleep in becomes very still. It amplifies creaks and groans, the odd pepper of noises that visit irregularly in the dark. During the warmer times, these things fade with the thanks of our fan, which keeps us cool and lulls us with its steady turn of noise. Here, now, when it is colder, the various noises might build a narrative: what is coming next? It can sometimes keep one up at night.

I have always found the ocean terribly calming, and I believe I better understand one aspect of its effect, now, in part because of this clock. There is definite rhythm to oceans. Living at the ocean, one is exposed to the cycles of wrack and patient, defiant rebuilding over the course of a lifetime, and punctuation of the seasons in the year, the visible swing of the Moon 'round the Earth in the troubled lap of the waters, and the daily manifest of the same, peeling back the foam and (from my youth) cold so children with calloused feet can walk the line of broken shell and pebbled rock to look for hints of purple or the calm white of sand dollars. Standing next to the sea at night in later years, just to feel the waves come in, and come in, and come in again, testing the pauses between each crash, listening to the wind move up and down, and getting lost in the impossible staccato of the wash as it dribbled out and over my feet. With the exception of the last (in which there is only rhythm that I myself would put there) all the wheels turn slow on calm days.

(The ocean in anger has a rhythm as well, but it is one I understand much less.)

The clock, then, sits at the other end of the room that we sleep in, up near the ceiling, partially obscured by a piece of the architecture. It is a simple, cheap clock. It has a plain black rim of plastic, and large, carefully professional numerals arranged in a ring. The hands are black and plain as well, and the unadorned second hand is done in the expected red. It is completely unremarkable, and during the day we neglect it, already forgetting. But at night, the soft, oddly variable chuff chuff chuff of the step second hand steps into the room we sleep in, filling the space with a regularity which has turned out to be assuring.

I do not wear a watch. A long time ago, a friend of mine (whom I have since lost, alas) attended sessions with a therapist. The therapist's eventual prescription (more or less): "You worry about being late. Wear a watch." I do not wear a watch, but I have a clock to keep me company.