Time Lords

If I could turn back the clock, there are things I’d want to know.

But before I’d do that, I’d have to decide which clock to turn back. My office wall clock is now digital as is my bedside clock and would not give me satisfaction in running backwards, but there are other clocks, older clocks.

A cherry Grandmother’s Clock stood in my maternal grandmother’s living room, five feet tall, chiming on the quarter hour in the Westminster pattern.  It had a golden pendulum and weights, a face with the sun, moon, and stars that tracked the phases of the moon.My paternal grandmother had a much smaller, anniversary clock that sat on top of her maple console television in her double wide. It, too, tracked the phases of the moon under its glass dome. Beneath the face, a mechanism turned like an indecisive golden carousel, first one way and then another, the four golden balls held on small scimitars in constant motion.  My parents hung a school house clock in their entry.  Its wooden case marking our comings and goings as we grew and finally left the nest.  Presently, I have only digital clocks and a couple of watches to play with.  In recent years, I’ve even stored the watches and use my phone for time.

A professor showed me once how it was mathematically possible to set up molecules in a jar to move to a higher state of order, lower entropy. Time could briefly go backwards, but it was not H. G. Wells Time Machine, nor Dr. Who’s Tardis.  And, soon, the molecules returned to increasing randomness and time was on the move again in the right direction.

Although I’ve never gone backward in time, except in memory, I have lived months, or even years, in an afternoon. When I am “in the zone,” doing something I love, time speeds by. I am sure this sometimes happens for you. We become Time Lords like the Doctor, Doctor Who. When this zone releases us and we return to those caught in the molasses of ordinary time, we realize that so much more has happened to us than we can explain to anyone who was not with us.

If I could turn back the clock, I’d like to talk to my grandparents and great-grandparents. When were they caught up in such ecstasy that time warped and spun and danced at breakneck speed? After we savored those breathless moments together, I’d ask about the family tree.

When have you been swept up in ecstasy?  Overwhelmed by gratitude or joy?

Savor those moments, Time Lords and Ladies.  Savor and remember.