Tick Tock Me to Sleep

“I hear the ticking of the clock I'm lying here the room's pitch dark.”

That opening line from the song Alone by Heart was running through my head as I lay in bed last night. 

The metronome-steady, monotonous ticking of the clock that sits on a ledge next to the bed in my rented house in Cherry Grove is not annoying. In fact, it’s a welcome relief. Those of you who know me and have read this blog before might find that curiously out of character for me. I know. I’m the guy who has made it a quest in life to find peace in his home. That is a difficult task in a City that never sleeps. Turns out there is comfort to be found in the simple ticking of a clock.

It’s old school. There is no digital glare. It doesn’t even glow in the dark. The clock that sits beside my bed at home is digital. No matter when I wake up I can always turn and see the time. Not here. The clock in this bedroom is small and when the lights are out the room is dark. I can hear it, but I can’t see it. The only way to do so would be to turn on the light. 

I kind of like that scenario. I tend to wake up a least once during the night when I’m at home. I look over at the clock and I calculate how much time I have left to sleep before it’s time to get up. That sucks. The brain is trying to power down while calculating the amount of minutes it has left to be in sleep mode. How descent can that one hour or 42 minutes or 15 minutes actually be? It’s fitful and nothing fitful is restful.

On the one side of me I have the ticking clock. On the other side of me I have an open sliding door that lets the sound of the crashing waves fill my room. What I don’t have is a thumping bass, a loud conversation, a ringing phone, a barking dog, a crying baby. I’m in heaven. Do I have to return to the real world? 

That’s a stupid question. I just have to enjoy every moment that I’m here and take the peace and serenity with me. I have to carry it in my soul. I have to keep in a place that is easily accessible for those moments when NYC begins to get on my nerves. It’ll happen. It always does. I’ll just close my eyes and take a deep breath and remember what the air filled with essence of ocean smells like. I’ll remember how serene the ticking clock made the night.

I won’t even need Calgon to take me away then.