Lost And Found: One Hour

I’d been waiting for a morning like this for weeks. I.e. a morning when I’d wake up to a sunny day, feeling like I might just possibly have the energy within me to go out to the House; which stands empty since Dad moved to an assisted living group home two months ago.

An increased incentive for going dropped in through the mailbox on Friday. Authorities wanted me to put a sticker with a barcode on the wheelie bin. This, they claimed, will give us better service and be much safer. Hm. (I wonder how long before we’ll have to put a sticker on every garbage bag?)

Had the wheelie bin been in my own garden, this would have been a two-minutes-job at the most, no big deal. However, when the wheelie bin is in the garden of an empty house out in the countryside, and it takes me an hour or more to get there (by bus), and even longer to get back… For me, it’s a full day’s work.

However, the sticky little job solved one dilemma for me: Whether to pay a visit to the House, or to Dad, since the two are no longer in the same place. Sometimes “in my dreams” I manage both but the realistic me knows that without a private chauffeur I don’t. And sometimes I suspect myself of ending up not going anywhere as much from inability to choose as from other, more valid reasons.

So waking up this morning, feeling reasonably well rested, and seeing we had a sunny (and frosty) day coming, I decided to get the sticky job over and done with, and reassure myself that no big bad wolf had blown down the house since I was there last; and just  combine that with a bit of a photography walk, and no other overambitious plans.

I got off the bus a stop or two early and took a roundabout walk down by the lake. It really was a great day for photos…

At the House, things appeared to be in the same order as when I last left the place. The roof was still on. (A few months ago some tiles were not, so that’s why I’ve been a bit worried during recent stormy nights.) After my initial round, I went into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. I was surprised to find how quickly time had passed. 12.45 already? Oh well… I had been walking rather slowly, taking photos, not thinking much about the time on my way there… So I decided not to rush but stay an extra hour. (Busses go regularly once every hour on weekends.) Found a pie in the freezer and heated that in the microwave for lunch. And had my tea.

The wheelie bin turned out to already have a sticker on it. In my eyes they looked exactly the same. I did not, however, compare the code bar by bar. I decided to just believe, for my own peace of mind, that they must have made some very important and life-saving (or at least money-saving) change there…

I also went through a few drawers in the bedroom and threw away some stuff no one is likely to miss (might as well make use of that carefully marked bin!).

Then I walked to the bus stop, and caught the bus back to town. Feeling that it had been a looong day, but that on the whole I had made good enough use of it...

Sitting on the bus, I glanced at my wrist watch. It showed 1.45 pm. Not 2.45 pm, as I had expected it to. At first I thought there was something wrong with the watch…

… But there wasn’t. While at the House, I had looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. Which was still showing summer time, since no one had put it back on winter time! Never occurred to me! And my “body clock” is still a little confused, as well…

So that’s how I lost an hour, and got it back again, in the same day. I was back home around the time I had originally planned. But somehow… I still feel as tired as if I had been away at least an hour longer…

I guess I’ll have to blame it on jet-lag!

Watching and Waiting

 

‘Hitman’ by Kent Karlsson

This sculpture is on loan for the summer exhibit and has been placed inside the bus centre building, with the train station in the background. Considering its name (and other recent events with other sculptures) perhaps a wise move to put it in a “safe” place! (My only complaint is that it wasn’t easy to get a good shot of it with the camera… because of the contrast between the darkness inside the building and the bright light outside.) 

I kind of like it. If I hadn’t read its name in the paper, I think I might have called it Time Traveller. The name Hitman gives it a more ominous feeling though…

“You can't own time, but you can use it.
You can't keep it, but you can spend it.
Once you've lost it you can never get it back.”

~Harvey MacKay~

Time Travel

Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

(Inspired by: The One-Minute Writer: Friday Fiction: Time)


This Sunday morning, at two o'clock, we are supposed to time travel again, by setting our clocks forward one hour. The only effect this will have on me (as every year) is to throw me out of rhythm once more, just as I was beginning to find it again after the winter darkness. "Summer time", they insist on calling it in this country – even though I woke up this morning and found the world outside all white again!

No, pretending to travel just one hour forward in time is really not enough to make the experience exciting in my mind…

Real time travelling has little to do with pushing the hands of a clock backwards or forwards, or turning an hour-glass upside down. That doesn't get you anywhere! You cannot pass through into a different time dimension as long as you are still aware of how time runs in this one. If you try, this will only result in serious stress syndrome, which might take you years to recover from.

What you have to do is stop time by forgetting it altogheter. Pull out the plugs, remove the batteries, or put your clocks in another room so you can't see or hear them. You should also shut out all other kinds of noise that remind you of the time of day, or year. Then go to your bookcase, pull out a book that takes place in the time you want to visit. Make yourself comfortable, and open the book...

Don't expect the transfer to take place immediately; at first you will probably still be too much aware of your own familiar surroundings. Sometimes it doesn't take place at all; you might have to try again another day. But remember, the key to time-travelling is not (as you might think) trying to push time forwards or backwards, but rather sideways. And the opening to the other dimension is different in each book. It might actually sometimes be a glance at a clock (in the book, mind, not in the room where you started reading!); but it could just as well be a hole in the ground, a wardrobe door, or the turning of a page in a book within the book…

… but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet… and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit hole under the hedge.

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland


… in the hall below, there was a clock, and through the night he would hear it strike the hours. It was a grandfather clock and very old. Mr Frith of Leighton Buzzard came each month to wind it, as his father had come before him and his great-grandfather before that. For eighty years, they said (and to Mr Frith's certain knowledge), it had not stopped and, as far as anyone could tell, for as many years before that. The great thing was – that it must never be moved. It stood against the wainscot, and the stone flags around it had been washed so often that a little platform, my brother said, rose up inside. And, under this clock, below the wainscot, there was a hole…

Mary Norton, The Borrowers


Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree-trunks, she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out. (She had, of course, left the door open, for she knew that it is a very silly thing to do to shut oneself into a wardrobe.)

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe


He made himself comfortable, picked up the book, turned to the first page and began to read The Neverending Story...

Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

(the sentence translated by me from the German original)