Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Tick Tock is a Rhythmic Clock

I was thinking recently about a very memorable trip that I took with a good friend--many years back. Funny that I worked on a strawberry farm (doing migrant style work) in order to save enough money to take that trip. I flew from Toronto to Utah to stay at my friend's house while her parent's were still in Toronto, working for our church. He had a three-year mission assignment there and was about half-way through fulfilling it.

That friend's name was Tiffany and she was born into a very wealthy family and consequently was very spoiled. But she was fun-spoiled rather than being snotty spoiled. Sometimes I was certain that she had no idea how great she had it in life. Their family had most definitely been abundantly blessed and lived in a part of Salt Lake City that was extremely upscale by comparison to the rest of the city and also it was wonderfully situated smack at the top of the foothills.

And I'll never forget the smell of their home and the sounds upon first entering. The scent of eucalyptus was thick and rich and everywhere that I walked, it was naturally rustic and smelled like a cabin with this lovely organic scent that seemed to permeate the air inside and out. The bathroom and the kitchen smelled like dense eucalyptus forestry and especially the little nook off of the kitchen with it's cozy sofa and monitor--which was so luxuriant in ways that I'd never before seen.

The 40 degree cold storage room off of the kitchen was like a walk-in industrial fridge and I'm sure was installed for entertainment purposes. It seemed the kind of house that was built for hosting cocktail parties and wine and cheese events. But from the outside it did not appear stately. It was hidden like a cottage in the shire.

But what struck me most was the enormous collection of large wall clocks that Tiffany's father had acquired over the years. There were all sorts. Cuckoo clocks, wall clocks and grandfather clocks among a wide variety of others. And I'd never before seen such a collection and it was impressive beyond belief. And they all worked and clicked away the hours and exactly on the hour, they chimed and it was a co-ordinating musical compilation of sorts.

I wondered how I would sleep in such orchestrated madness. But sleep well, I did. Because the ticking of the clocks was rhythmic and soothing and it lulled me into a deep and healthy reverie every night before I finally conked out. I thoroughly enjoyed that place. Probably a little too much. It was hard to leave when I did.

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