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My Stupid WatchDecember 23, 2005 This morning was all about my stupid watch. I don't even wear a watch. I haven't been a watch-wearer since 1971, when I lost mine somewhere on the Georgetown University campus during the week of the Mayday demonstrations. I have, however, owned several watches since then. When I was involved in Vineyard theater, it was often as stage manager. A stage manager without a timepiece is like Pinocchio without a nose. The stage manager is the timekeeper: if the SM says the show starts in five minutes, then the show starts in five minutes -- but the stage manager better know how long five minutes is. So when I took on a stage-managing gig, I'd buy a cheap watch, and every time, a day or two after the run ended and the set was struck, I'd lose it. When my extracurricular career in the theater was pre-empted by horses and The Mud of the Place, I stopped keeping a watch around. Who needs a watch anyway? There's a clock in my truck, a clock on my computer, a clock on the microwave, a clock by my bedside, and a clock visible from my desk chair -- not to mention the little trophy clock on my desk that has said 4:10 for the last couple of years because it needs a new battery. At Malabar Farm we keep a logbook of what days we ride and how long on the trail, how long in the ring. A watch seemed advisable, since none of my other timekeepers are portable and the only alternative was to keep ducking into the barn to check the wall clock. The current stupid watch is the second of my equestrian career. The stem broke off the first one. It's still merrily ticking away, but it's two hours and ten minutes slow and without the stem I can't reset it. The second hand of stupid watch #2 only moves when it's face down; when it's face up, I can see the hand struggling to move forward but the minute and hour hands seem to be blocking its forward march. These stupid watches were cheap as watches go -- each cost about 40 bucks -- but in my curmudgeonly opinion anything that costs 40 bucks ought to do what it's supposed to do at least until the battery dies. This morning my mind was like that feebly struggling second hand, trying to get past the dystopian vision of hundreds of millions of USians rushing about buying shoddy, overpriced, unserviceable gifts that will be busted or forgotten by the middle of January. Oh yeah, and the two gifts I'd ordered almost two weeks ago from a horse-supply catalogue: I'd been haunting the post office all week and they still hadn't come. Stupid company had probably shipped to the wrong address. Turned out it was stupid me who hadn't read through the e-mail confirmation notice, which clearly stated that the items were back-ordered but didn't say when they were expected. Stupid stupid stupid. I decided that it really would be OK if the gifts were late getting to their recipients, so I called the company to ascertain the intended ship date, if there was one. The customer service rep couldn't find me in the back-order file. Stupid stupid -- But wait. Turned out the order wasn't in the back-order file because it had shipped on Wednesday. The company's in Massachusetts; the odds weren't bad that my parcel might already be at the West Tisbury post office. I tacked a p.o. detour onto the day's itinerary. There was a yellow card in my mailbox. The package was the one I was waiting for. Exiting the p.o., I ran into two horsey friends whom I hadn't seen in weeks, then a long-time acquaintance whom I hadn't seen since the summer. We got to talking about the kind of music we wished were happening on Martha's Vineyard these days, and it turned out we're both looking for pretty much the same thing. Since I decided to leave the Island Community Chorus, I've been waiting for another musical door to open: there at the West Tisbury post office I got glimmers of light where a door might be. Around sunset, after doing barn chores, I stopped off in Vineyard Haven to buy one more present. Found a parking place in the Steamship Authority lot off Union Street: good sign. Leaving town, I headed down Water Street, hung a right through Five Corners -- and stared into one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen. The entire evening sky was rippling like the surface of the ocean, but in awesome blue-purples and rose-peaches. Five Corners is probably the worst place on Martha's Vineyard to have an out-of-body experience, so I managed to keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes, mostly, on the road as I drove up-island to do evening chores at my long-weekend horse-sit. Wow wow wow. Past the Tashmoo overlook, going up the hill by the Mai Fane farmhouse, the blues and purples had deepened and the flaming rose-and-peaches had mostly dissolved. Damn, did you see that sunset?? Day wound up being about a whole lot more than my stupid watch.
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