Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
« Bed...for sleeping in | Main | Books on head? »
My new old clock
What is it about a ticking clock that can be so relaxing and comforting? Do you like clocks as much as I do? There is a new one in my Alexander Technique practice that looks at me from across the room and I have to admit it is rather pleasing. Having not had a clock in this room before other than a small silent digital one, this new clock which is actually not new at all but a 1920's French silver-plated mantle clock, ticks with a beguiling gentleness that's neither hurried nor slow, it's not loud but audible if one listens and it dresses the side table beautifully. It also tells the time, which is handy.
When I say it tells the time however, it doesn't necessarily tell the time that Greenwich Meantime states as 'correct', but it tells its own time, a time that may vary rather by a few minutes fast or slow. Whether this quirky inaccuracy is down to it's mood, temperament or the weather, I'm still figuring out, as despite how I tweak the adjustments at the back, it still seems to go slightly erratic by the next morning. This isn't too alarming or even annoying, but more quaint and curiously idiosyncratic. This I like, as it's rather similar to personal behaviour and I relate to its inconsistency. Wouldn't life be boring if we were always the same, neither up nor down, regular as 'clockwork'?
I found this clock in an antique market in Durham when I attended the Royal Photographic Society conference on church photography in July. Restored by the stallholder who reportedly paid almost as much for the repair to an unnameable bit inside as I was being asked to pay him, so I couldn't resist it, particularly as it looked so nice.
But back to my original question, what is it about a ticking clock that can be so relaxing, calming and even reassuring? I know some people don't like clocks, as one of my clients told me, but this one was 'tolerable', for which I'm glad. My guess is that the regular tick relates very closely to the regular beat of our heart. (After all, our heart is often referred to as a 'ticker'!)
When in our mother's womb we are subjected to her regular body rhythms, her heart beat, her breathing, the movement of bodily fluids which flow and ebb with a similar tempo to the waves on the shore. We are safely cocooned in our dark and comfortable sanctuary, where life itself is determined by these very rhythms. Maybe this is why many of us find the late Baroque music of J.S. Bach so pleasing and calming, as it is often said that the regular and even beat closely replicates those to be found within the human body.
We have a 1850's Viennese wall-clock at home that ticks more slowly and chimes, which is just as pleasing, but in a different way. Most traditional clocks with mechanical workings have a pleasing tick, but if we put several in the same room together, then it can just be all too much. The clash of ticks at different 'tempos' that do not relate to one another can jar in conflict, causing disquiet, unrest and stress. No, just give me one nice clock, anytime. One that ticks alone and maybe with a sweet chime. It barely matters if it tells the correct time, just as long as its tick is regular and even....... :-)
