Time is either running away from me or standing still. The clock in my truck keeps on eking ahead a minute and a minute and a minute. Now it’s fully 12 minutes fast. It keeps me on my toes cognitively, as me reading the time is never just one step. I have to look at the time, subtract 10, and then subtract two from that. We recently “fell back” for daylight savings time, so my vehicle clock is no longer one hour and 12 minutes off, just the 12 minutes.

The coffee maker at the house, now I’ve set that ahead by 10 minutes. That’s to put a jolt for anyone who looks at it as they’re getting ready for the morning. Yes, as time goes on, the jolt affect isn’t as strong. But like the clock in my truck, it serves as a cognitive exercise. The coffee maker clock time variance is a man made construct. I have no explanation for the movement of the truck clock, minute by minute.

Now, the conference table in my office, it’s a free for all. I have a collection of four clocks on this table. One is 7 minutes ahead, one was one minute ahead. The other two, they are 100% correct twice a day, one at 2:30 and the other at 12:30. Of these two stopped clocks, one was brought on board in this stopped fashion. I liked it’s style and shape, and did not mind that it was a wind up clock without the key for the back provided . That didn’t stop me from taking it from the Goodwill and depositing it in my office. Now the round silver clock atop a large silver spring. That one was working when I got it. But , perhaps the battery wiggles lose after it’s been bobbling around , which is quite often, as each time the table gets even slightly moved even by leaning on it to write, this clock wobbles and moves. I stopped making sure the battery was tight several months ago.

I had added an interesting “backwards clock” to the mix some months back, but I just couldn’t figure it out. I never did figure out if it was working properly before I took it back to the store. Were the hands supposed to move backwards? The numbers were in reverse order, so I felt the hands should move that way, too. It seemed as though sometimes the hands moved forward and sometimes backward. I never figured out the “formula” for interpreting the real time, and returned it to the store in frustration.

The folks I meet with regularly in my office have grown accustomed to asking me which clock is right . Heck, I often speak out loud, “hey Siri, what time is it?” , awaiting my I-phone’s patient and accurate response.

My computer and desk phone also provide me with the time, albeit a four minute difference between the two , and thankfully the date, too! And they don’t stop or gradually move ahead. Guess that’s always a good back up.

So, as the time speeds up or just plain stops, I will continue to work hard to focus on and stay in the here and now.