Cuckoo Clock Time

2024 flew by far too quickly.  Wasn’t it just a few months ago I was shopping for last year’s Christmas gifts?

The old adage is always true: When you’re a child you want time to speed up. You want to grow up as quickly as possible. As a young girl I wondered when would I wear my first bra? When could I wear makeup? When will I meet my first boyfriend? How long will I have to wait to get my Driver’s License? As a child, time creeps by far too slowly. As an adult, time flies by. 

  I’ve had a Cuckoo Clock for the last twenty-five years. It is one of those beautiful antique wooden-carved German ones. Mine has traditional dancing couples who spin and swirl into their little Bavarian cottage and out again, counting the hours with their spins. 

My dear Vermont sister was visiting. As we always do in one another’s homes, she examines every piece of art, knick knacks, photographs and furniture. I love watching her traverse through time by the familiarities of our lives. She knows much of my oldest antiques already, having visited our Wyckoff home in the 1960s. The same antiques my mother and father had feathered their nest with from shops in Antiques Row in the 50s now enhance my home. Sherrie paused at my Cuckoo Clock and said, “Does it work?” 

“I don’t know.” I replied. In all these years I don’t think I ever wound my Cuckoo Clock. Tim and I had purchased it at a garage sale at least twenty five years earlier. I may have wound it up then, but I have forgotten. Yet the song, the Cuckoos and the dancers were very familiar, once they were rejuvenated...

Always practical, she said, “Well, let's wind it up and find out.”  

 Of course, I thought, that made so much sense. What was I waiting for?

We pulled down the three chains which lift the pine cone weights to wind the clock. We set the time correctly according to Alexa and set the Maple leaf pendulum swinging. I was making dinner when the first Cuckoo called out. I missed the initial Cuckoos and the dancing, the swirling couples and their retreat into their cottage. Sherrie excitedly announced, “It’s working! It Cuckooed five times! The little couples are dancing!” 

I kept missing the show while I was cooking. Finally, my sister and I shared a special moment when the next show began. We closely stood together in front of my little Cuckoo Clock. She happily cuckooed, the tiny couples danced to the music and then swirled and spun into their Bavarian cottage. 

From then on, whenever possible I run to listen on the half hour and hour as the Cuckoo sings.  This gives me joy and a quiet peace; a feeling of connection, to history and my father’s German past.

My Cuckoo Clock is consistently five, ten, twenty and finally, fifty minutes slow. Eventually, through my lack of winding up her pine cones, refreshing her, she stops. Time stands still. The Cuckoo Clock halts her cuckooing. The pine cone weights are not raised. The Maple leaf pendulum stops dead in its tracks.

As an older adult I measure time differently than when I was a child. Now, hours pass by too quickly. I long to slow them down, to savor and remember the moments. Time flies, and you can’t catch it. Before you know it, it’s gone.

 Through my life I have learned that time starts and stops in fits and hesitations. Years, I realize, progress in much the same way, all the way back to my childhood. On July 6, 1958 my father unexpectedly died. Time stopped completely that summer, just as my Cuckoo Clock stops when neglected.  The Pine cones of my life lay unmoving on the floor, sapped of all energy. My clock had no purpose. This Cuckoo stopped her cuckooing. The Bavarian couples stopped their singing, dancing and spiraling into their little cottage. In that long-ago summer everything came to an absolute standstill. Then, someone, or something, came along and pulled the chains, raising the pine cones weights of my life. The clock was set, the pendulum put in motion, the Cuckoo called out. The hands turned the minutes, leading to another hour and another day, another month, another year. Just as my Cuckoo clock has, I awakened, returned to life.

In joy, time speeds up in a constant sway, a dancing musical world of happiness and discovery. 1992 was that year for me. It was a constant carousel ride of joy on top of the world, dancing and singing into my little Bavarian cottage with my love. 

Father Time gently cradles the New Year, symbolizing the transition and renewal of time.

My grandchildren are spread across Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Vermont and St. Petersburg. I look around our home this holiday season and remember the year my oldest grandchild, Sarah, visited for the first time. It was the Christmas of 2011. It seems like yesterday. She was about six months old, and just able to sit up on her own. I sat with her on the floor, her little back balanced on my couch pillow, my legs spread around her, protecting her with the bridge of my limbs.

The following year she was walking and helped us decorate our Norfolk Pine tree in our front yard. We picked her up and handed her Christmas balls which she placed on the tree as high as she could. Her face was full of hopefulness, surprise, ‘Will I reach that branch?’  Now she is thirteen and I haven’t seen her in two years. I have missed some of the most important events of her young life. The years between visits are the slowest. The times of visits fly away far too quickly.

Our local treasure is our grandchild, Kyndal.  She lives “across the bridge” as we Tampanians say of St. Petersburg.  We have been able to witness all of her changing moments, minutes, hours and years.  I remember the first time I met her tiny self just after she was born. Her face with her rosebud mouth and halo of black curly hair was all part of this new life, Kyndal. I continue to see in her almost-eleven-year old face the infant she once was. I still love to caress her springy, beautiful hair. 

Time slows down between Kyndal and Keleigh's visits. We treasure the moments of Kyndal’s art projects, saxophone concerts, acrobatic and dance recitals in our living room. I love our makeup and nail polish sessions. Tim’s hairdressing 'Creations by Kyndal' are the most special times for him and Kyndal. Secrets and thoughts are shared. Tim always loves his fresh “do.”

Around the campfire we argue over facts of life and favorite dinners and who gets the most Sparklers. Kyndal and Keleigh snagged the most and danced jubilantly around the campfire.  Jupiter shone brightly above us. Kyndal helped us view this enormous planet and the moon up in our telescope. It was a wondrous moment. How could we see something so clearly 250,600 miles away? The evening flew by, as it always seems to do, with memories of Jupiter and the Moon forever woven into our lives.

Our Cuckoo clock carousel ride of life continues, sometimes fast, sometimes more gradually. Tim and I are slower at calling up memories.  “What’s that guy's name? You know, the actor who played in some movie, maybe a Western?”  It will come to mind, eventually. We laugh over the NYTConnections and UNO battles and whose accent is worse, Southern or “Yankee?” We giggle over stupid things we’ve done, private jokes, special nibbles and lots of love. That’s when time speeds up again. You want to scream, “Wait! Slow Down! I’m not done with this scene!” 

So it goes with my writing. The months and years of my writing, in journals and book drafts go by so very quickly. I must get every word, every thought, written down before they are lost to me, forgotten by slow time. Writing days fly by.

Then the editing days begin, slowing me down. The process drags on, and on and on, the very slowest hours. Finally, time takes flight again. The acceptance of my manuscript by a publisher, the editing, this time fun, by the editorial staff.  My acceptance of the final proofed manuscript, the printing, the delivery of my book into my hands. It is a whirlwind.  I am back, riding the carousel, spinning joyfully, dancing into my Bavarian cottage with my beloved. 

Vermont, 1970

Eventually, between writing projects, life comes to a still place. I am devoid of new ideas. Someone needs to rewind my clock.

Our Cuckoo clock has reached her apex, she is winding down. She is now almost an hour behind. We must reset her to the present. I still her Maple leaf pendulum and raise her pinecone weights beneath the little cottage.  Tim, tall enough to lean over her clock face, adjusts the hour and the minute, matching our Cuckoo to real time. I pull the pine cone chains with their weights, push the Maple leaf pendulum in motion. The Cuckoo chimes once, the couples dance directly into their cottage. Her time is temporarily accurate, but we know she will slow down until we speed her up, by a minute, an hour or a day, by lifting her pine cone weights, renewing her energy, her chains to life.

So, here we are, about to launch a new year, 2025.  An entire year has passed, encompassing countless birthdays, joys and sorrows. Another year of new possibilities, new visits, new growth, new adventures, lurking just behind the Cuckoo Clock’s call.

 I am interrupted in my writing by her cuckoo. She cuckoos twelve times. The little couples come out of their home to dance and swirl to the music. They return happily to their tiny cottage. Their door snaps shut. They are safe, content and filled with the minutes of their lives in their home.

I wish you all a happy Cuckoo Clock Year, treasuring the fast and slow minutes, hours, days and months of 2025.  Make all your minutes count, whether to savor or fly through. This is your time. Soar!

My 2025 Cuckoo Clock Project