My husband’s Mom had a cuckoo clock.
He tells the story about how she would wake up to the sound of the cuckoo chime once and and have to lay there for a half an hour to find out what time it was because anyone who has or grew up with a Cuckoo or Grandfather clock knows that every half hour the clock chimes once. Before the modern conveniences (yeah) of digital clocks that beam the time to us mockingly all night reminding us that we still aren’t asleep – the cuckoo taunted and haunted. So, she’d lay awake and if the next half hour only chimed once – she was doomed to lay awake for at least one more half hour because the first chime she heard could have been 12:30am or 1:00am and her need to know kept her up.
My Nana had a couple of clocks that chimed and I love hearing them when I visited. You could hear the tick tock from rooms away and the deep boom, boom, boom in the middle of the night was so reassuring to me. My grandfather kept the key up high above the clock where we couldn’t reach it and there was a huge production that happened when he would open up the front glass door and crank the gears to keep it going. He’d check his watch and make any tiny adjustments to the time and close the case back up. I think I may need to get an old clock now – guess I’m getting old, or just more sentimental.
Until tomorrow.
Jenna
Day 52 was made with pen & ink and watercolor.