April 04 2006, 11:11 PM Living On Public Time

Usually, I carry around a cell phone. I'm not sure if I can really justify the thing these days - I don't really use it much for calls, but it has proved useful for other things. Today, it sat lonely on the table by the radio as I wondered around the world, a result of my groggy efforts to quit the house. It turned out that there were a few places in my day where I could have used it as a phone; its absence was much more keenly felt for my knowing what time it was.

I am not alone in this practice; at one point in class recently, someone asked for the time, and most of us whipped out phones so as to be able to tell them, not a one of us with a watch.

So hobbled, I decided to see how well I could do without. It turns out that there are clocks all over the place in my day if I try to look for them, and I did reasonably well by them: the dull red numbers of the battered clock radio sitting next to the toaster in the coffee-shop, the proud arms of the clock embedded in the facade across the street, clocks of all kinds tucked into this corner and that of stores and public buildings. In between them, I tried to keep the pace internally, and I did better than I expected. There was always the sun. It's harder to use the sun so here than in other places (and I am out of practice besides), but there is usually some information up there in the sky.

I do not know how useful it would be to scatter public sundials around. Most would not use them (more so here, with leaden skies so often), but on better days I think it would be a useful excuse for public art. I do not know how the sundial makers would deal with the shift for daylight savings time. I have thought of a few methods, but they are all inelegant. It remains: I think this place (or any place) would be better with more sundials in it.

Tomorrow I will remember my phone.