Ailantha
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Trail Of Watches

11/3/2017

0 Comments

 
    Today I received an email from an out-of-town friend whom I'd visited last weekend.
     Attached to my friend's email was this photo of a watch which she'd just noticed sitting on her piano. 
    Was the watch mine? she asked.

Picture
     (Sigh) Yes, I replied, that's my watch.
     I had noticed that this watch seemed to be missing, but I didn't look very hard for it or, in truth, give it more than a fleeting thought. I figured it was to be just another the many watches I've left behind along life's path.
     Watches, earrings, sunglasses, gloves, library books, all eventually go the way of all things; however any of the above objects that fall into my possession will for sure go that way a whole lot quicker. Alas, The Biggest Loser is me.
     But of all loseable objects, I have a special propensity for losing watches. I suppose this is because, unlike many of my fellow 21st Century humans whose phones now serve as their timepieces, I have a special propensity for wearing a watch. But I also have a special propensity for removing my watch often and setting it down on the nearest available surface.
      I think this trajectory of wear a watch, remove a watch, lose a watch comes, in my case, from being a piano teacher.
     For me a watch is a work necessity,

...as I teach lessons in students' homes,
Picture
...each lesson running for half an hour, more or less - well, never less, though often more, and if I didn't have a watch I'd never know when to stop the lesson.
     But just as my students are required before their lesson begins to remove  their watches, fit-bits, twisties,  Livestrong bands, rubber bands, yarn bracelets, hemp bracelets, friendship bracelets, or any of the other myriad possibilities of things that youngsters can show up for a piano lesson having  wrapped, snapped, or tied around their wrists,


...the principle being that playing the piano is difficult enough without having something possibly weighing on, constricting, obstructing, or otherwise bothering your wrist,
Picture
...I, too, remove my watch at the beginning of each lesson and set it  on the piano.
     In fact, removing my watch before playing the piano is so automatic for me that I do it reflexively, without thinking. Sadly, putting my watch back on afterwards is not so reflexive; subsequently I'm always leaving watches on pianos, as I did at my friend's house last weekend.
      It so happens that my friend's husband plays several stringed instruments, and so I joked that he should pull out his fiddle and we could have a hoe-down in the living room. I then hopped over to  their piano and played a few bars of boom-chucka, boom-chucka to accompany myself while I sang the melody of "Boil Them Cabbages Down."
     I was totally unconscious of having taken off my watch, and yet my friend had the pic, so it did, indeed, happen.
      Anyway, I emailed my friend back that she didn't need to worry about the watch I'd left behind, that I'm always leaving watches on pianos and losing them, that I keep a stash of cheap Walmart watches at home,

...my current stash, now down a watch,
Picture
...and a couple more in my purse.
     I told my friend she could keep my watch if she wanted or toss it into her purse for an emergency  watch in case she lost hers.
     But then my friend probably doesn't lose watches like I do.
     (Sigh) Nobody loses watches like I do.

     *The turquoise-banded watch is not a Walmart watch, 
...my sister Romaine made it for me.
Picture
I'm trying really hard not to lose it.
Picture
Picture
Now available at
    The Book Loft of German Village and
          Gramercy Books,
Columbus, Ohio

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    "Hail Mary"
    by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

    Picture
    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
    or from
    The Book Loft
    of German Village,
    Columbus, Ohio
    Picture
    Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
    Picture

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    RSS Feed

    I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
    hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers.

    Categories

    All


























































































Proudly powered by Weebly