Have you noticed there's a clock on the wall of your room?

<angst!>

Now by this time I'm plenty high,
You know when your mouth a-getting dry you're plenty high
Looked down the bar I say to my bartender
I said "Look man, come down here", he got down there
So what you want this time?
I said "Look man, a-what time is it?"
He said "The clock on the wall say three o`clock
Last call for alcohol, so what you need?"

The clock on my wall is a sun dial, if that's any clue.

The sands of time are falling one by one--but they would fall whether or not I was watching.

Ah, some Noddy wisdom.

The tough time for me was when I turned 4. I wanted to stay 3 forever.

But 4 came. My life has been hell since.

Little k--

The credit is not mine, but I believe belongs to Longfellow. He was out of date in my post war (WWII ) years in public school, but my mother pre war (WWI) was well exposed to the Transcentalists.

When you think about the problem, hour glasses are more forgiving than clocks since you can turn them over.

On the other hand, "Turn back the sands of time...." Impossible.

I never wanted to get older, except for a few years in high school, and I was always terrified of getting old and dying, even after the initial stage when you realize that since you are, after all, human, you will die eventually. Maybe it's due to the fact that I have heart problems and breast cancer and high blood pressure and Marfan's and all sorts of fun genetic things coming at me from both sides of my family, and they've always made a big deal about staying fit and whatnot. Everyone else gets to grow up and not think about how they're going to die, but I spent a lot of time listening to gloom and doom speeches from my dad about what happened to people who ate potatoes.

Anyway, now I think I've sort of reached an equilibrium with the whole death thing. I'm happy with the way I've lived my life so far, and what I've done, and what I've learned, and I could die tommorrow and I'd be fine with it. And I can eat all the potatoes I like.

I note the passage of the time of my life through "the thousand natural shocks to which the flesh is heir." I can accept aging and its attendant debilities because i long ago reconciled myself to crossing the bar. I wouldn't want to stay that clock, nor see it turned back. Regrets are self-inflicted wounds.

Through the sands of time, these are the days of our lives ...

I've been doing a lot of this 'thinking about the clock on the wall' thing lately. Sitting on the subway, watching to see which of the myriad of people pressed together is carrying the chemical bomb, or glancing down the sidewalk at the aged couple leaning against each other -one can't walk well, the other can't see much- together they travel the city, and wondering if's that's going to be me and L in twenty years.

Twenty years seems like an ocean of time, then changes right before me into a blink, what the hell?

Time like an ever flowing river....

Personally, I'm startled to find so many people who are younger than I am--and people in positions of power with heavy responsibilities. The Angel of Death is becoming a frequent flyer in my neighborhood--and I expect in 10-20 years I'll be able to count on him as a extra man for dinner parties.

Still, the apples are exceptionally good this fall; the sun is still warm; I have places to go and people to see and books to read...

I'm vividly aware of the inevitable, but I'm not paralyzed by a finite life.

This is good writing. Students, put down your pens, no, pick up your pens and try to do better than this.

Joe--

That line is only a western take of the wisdom of Old Omar, The Tentmaker.

Thank you for the kind words.

The clock in here is stopped. Whaddaya suppose that means? Eek, I can't find my pulse.

Maybe, Jespah, it means that you will never grow older, that you have reached the acme of your existence, that transendence of time has been mastered

or

maybe you just need to change the AA battery.

it would be facscinating, before i go, to supervise the birth and nurturing of a clone.

[now there's a source of anguish; will it make all the right decisions, where i erred? ]

The moving finger, having writ,
Moves on, nor all thy piety, nor all thy wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.


-- from an Edward Fitzgerald translation

I dream of the clock on the wall...and in a nightmarish attempt I keep trying to turn the hands counterclockwise…