August 7, 2008--The Bells of North Pomfret

Though just beginning to rouse from a deep sleep, even a day later--our second day here--I remain convinced that the bells that announce the hour and each quarter hour from high up in the steeple of the North Pomfret Congregationalist church, those bells, with a mind of their own, at three minutes before 6:45 a.m. that first morning, tolled the full seven-o’clock hour, eighteen minutes prematurely.

By the next morning the situation appeared to have been corrected, or adjusted itself. More or less. Since that time, though the bells are no longer proclaiming the hour at a quarter-to, every quarter hour and every full hour are still being struck three minutes early.

There is the argument to be made that in this postcard-perfect valley, a few minutes one way or the other doesn’t matter all that much. The local farmers, don’t they, still tell time more by sunlight and the seasons than by clocks on churches or, for that matter, on their wrists. And anyone who has a traditional 9-5 job is unlikely to depend upon something so nineteenth century to keep them out of trouble with their bosses. Then for second homeowners and vacationers, isn’t not caring that much about what day it is, much less what hour or minute half the very purpose for being here?

In spite of myself, I are realizing perhaps not for me.

Though we have been on the road and away from the City for a month, the deep residual need for me to know the day, the hour, and it looks like even the minute has not faded. No matter how much I say I want to free myself from its pull I remain ensnared by time.

So I’ve been pestering the mistress of the North Pomfret post office about this, thinking she more than anyone else should know what’s going on. Her office is the only other public building in this tiny town, no more than 50 yards from the church and its clock, and since she has worked there for some time, I thought who better to ask about this situation. I knew enough to know that I should proceed cautiously because as a Flatlander camped out here for just August and dependent on her to receive and hold our forwarded mail, though I very much wanted to figure out the story of that clock, the local lore about it—which I assumed would at least be charming and, perhaps better, eccentric—more important, I wanted to be sure to get the mail on time: not so much the bills but the eight books I had ordered and eagerly awaited—it is very quiet here.

So I thought I was being wise by not broaching the subject of the church clock the first time we stopped in for the mail. I needed to scope out the situation so as not to do anything inappropriate—who knew, perhaps legendarily-laconic Vermonters were proud of the ways things were working, bells and all, thank you, and didn’t need any instruction from outsiders—and I didn’t want to distract us from gathering the essential mail.

After we introduced ourselves, I noticed with a sigh of some relief that there was a load of it—so much in fact that Mrs. J____ (she wore a name tag) had been gathering it in an official post office tub, which from the volume and weight of the month’s accumulated bills and thankfully many books, I realized would require a few trips back and forth to the car. But with the friendliest of smiles, Mrs. J____ waved at us and the tub and said that we should take it with us, that it would make it easier, with the groceries she correctly assumed we had, to bring everything into the house. “That is,” she smiled even more broadly, “if you remember to bring it back the next time you come by.”

I said that this was most generous and, yes, we did have quite a load of groceries—we would be here through August and planned to do a lot of cooking. And that I would be sure to stop in tomorrow with he empty tub. “Who knows, maybe there’ll be more mail.”

“That would be very nice,” she said. “Maybe, if you have the time, we might have a cup of coffee together. I always like to get to know new people in town.” From over the counter I thought I could smell some fresh brew. “What I have is regular. Don’t use the caffeine version. I drink mine with just a little milk and two Sweet’N Lows.”

“That’ll do us fine,” Rona and I said simultaneously. “Though we have ours without any sweetener.”

“If you drink it that way that means you must be from a big city,” Mrs. J____ said with a wink.

“Looks like you might have noticed our address on the forwarded mail,” I took the risk of saying. I was just trying to fit in by picking up on her playful joshing style. “If OK, how about us buying the coffee tomorrow. They seem to have some special brew down at Teago’s that by afternoon you might enjoy.”

As we headed for the door, with a wave goodbye she said, “That would be nice. I look forward to it.”

Thus feeling welcomed, the rest of the day went well. I felt so relaxed and even at home in our isolated rental house, which was situated at least a quarter of a mile from our nearest neighbor, that I literally lost track of time—my watch had stopped, all the clocks in the house displayed widely different versions of the time, and the direction of the wind was such that the sounds of the miscalibrated church bells were blowing inaudibly away from us down the valley toward Woodstock.

But who cared. I had my books. And I thought, wasn’t this the way it was supposed to be—the meaning of if not getting-away-from-it-all, at least from some of it? So I thought, in the spirit of inner peace and harmony, should I crack open Ethan Canin’s America, America, which had been in the post office haul, or should I start with something more diverting like Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt? I opted for the latter, I needed the emersion in one of his “entertainments”—America the novel as well as America of the elections and gas prices and Iraq could wait. Again, wasn’t that sort of the point about being up here?

After chuckling my ways through the first few chapters of Travels, I slept like a log; and when I awoke, again at my usual 5:30—at least that’s the estimate that I could see in the half-light on the clock that rested on the bureau across from the bed. After, for me, such a good night’s sleep, I thought, “That’s close enough. 5:30, 5:45, 5:50? Who cares! Listen to those birds. I wonder if there are any wild turkeys still rummaging about?” I had seen a family—is that the right way to refer to them—the previous morning.

Later, we stopped by Teago’s to get three cups of coffee to go—one we remembered with two Sweet’N Lows—and made our way back over to the post office.

Mrs. J___ was of course there and said she was happy to see us again. As we were to see her still just as spunky and wry and full of life as we had left her the other day. “So I see you remembered to bring me something. How nice.” She paused, then with a sparkle added, “The tub I mean. No, just joshing. I mean the coffee. And with those Sweet’N Lows! Much appreciated.” She began to wiggle the lid off and then stirred in the sweetener. “Here, have a handful of these blueberries. My daughter just came back from gathering them. Down at Moore’s. You must have passed them if you came up the Pomfret Road.” We indicated that we did see at least a dozen cars haphazardly pulled over by the berry field as if they had screeched to an emergency stop. Those berries, I thought, must be something special to attract such an early-morning crowd. “You should get over there one of these days. But be sure to bring your own bucket. You’ll fill a big one up in 15 minutes they are so plentiful. In the meantime, have some of these.” With little reluctance we did reach across the counter to scoop up some and saw in an instant why Moore’s had created for this area such a traffic jam.

About half way into our coffee and after a second generous handful of berries, as the church bells just down the road rang out some approximation of the time, well enough lubricated by Teago’s excellent coffee and the even more succulent berries, I said, as if we hade lived there forever, “You know, Jean, there’s one thing I’ve been meaning to mention,” I was feeling bold enough to address Mrs. J___ by her first name, which was also printed on her tag, “There’s one really interesting thing . . .”

Either intrigued, more likely humoring me, she leaned all the way forward and, leaning on the counter, twinkling, she said, “And what’s that Steven?” She of course, it was her job, knew my name from the mailing labels she had been seeing on all those books and envelopes she had been setting aside during July. “What is really interesting?”

Hearing her quote me back to myself this way would normally have inhibited me and caused me to retreat and change the subject—back to the weather or something equivalent; but the good cheer she engendered encouraged me to press on. “It’s about that clock,” I gestured in the direction of the church.” She continued to look back at me with a theatrically puzzled look. “The one on the church I mean. The one that rings every 15 minutes or so.”

She picked that right up—“Or so, you say?”

I nodded, “Yes, that one. On the church I mean. Do you have a moment? I can explain.” I hoped I wasn’t sounding as if I were pleading. I truly was still feeling inner peace and wanted to appear cool and serene. Not my more needy New-York self.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

“Well, as you know,” she continued to gaze at me as if I were a foreign object, which I suppose I was, and wouldn’t give me any sign of recognition about knowing anything about whatever it was I was stammering about--she was having too much fun with me. “Well I noticed,” I pressed on, “the other morning the church clock was 18 minutes fast. It rang seven bells as if it was 7:00 o’clock when by the clock on my cell phone it was still 18 minutes to the hour.” (I had cleverly, I thought, figured out that though our house was so out of signal range it was useless for making or receiving calls, the phone’s clock somehow managed to tell accurate time.) She just kept looking back at me, seemingly more amused by the moment.

“But, interesting,” I continued, using interesting again as if anyone but me would be interested in any of this, “by yesterday morning things seemed to get better.” She took a deep breath, almost sighing, as if to stop me. She still didn’t say a word, but reading her unwavering look and perpetually wise smile I understood that she was trying to encourage me to calm down enough to focus just on the clock’s mechanical problems and not to grandiosely extrapolate that into something much larger—that, as I put it, things seemed to get better. It was as if she wanted me to be sure I wasn’t referring to Things with an upper-case T. If I wanted to get into that, she seemed to be saying by her look, that will be for another morning. So let’s now just talk about the clock up in the steeple.

Thus, without the necessity of a word from her, I resumed, hopefully in a more balanced way. “But by yesterday, our second day here, the situation seemed to improve.” I rattled on longer than I should have about now the hours rang much closer to the actually time but that everything was still three minutes off, etc., etc.

As I finally managed to listen to myself I realized how silly and uptight I was sounding, how caught up I still was in mundane matters. If I ever wanted to be able to reach to any of those perplexing realities, which Jean J___’s demeanor suggested should be reserved for another day and on that day should center on a more substantial set of issues, I would have to struggle further to become more successful than was currently on display to keep things in better proportion: the correctness of measured time was very different than the existential meaning of time.

I had been conflating the two and all this blather about the bells revealed that I clearly had a ways to go before I would be able to untangle these distractions from more important things. I had a lot of work to do but to do so only a month up here surrounding by this perfection. I had better, I told myself, get over this—the bells—and get on with it—the understanding.

Thus disappointed with myself, I finally shut up, shrugged, and smiled weakly back at Jean. She remained there for a moment, holding me gently in her gaze, and then lifted herself slowly with a creak from the counter. She had been on her feet all day. As on every other day.

Then she said, “Well, here’s what I think, if those bells are bothering you so much the way you say they do, why don’t you get some plugs and put them in your ears.”

This hit me with a jolt. But before any sense of upset fully enveloped me, she reached out to me and with an even friendlier smile said, “You know me, I’m always joshing. To tell you the truth, those bells shouldn’t be off like that. I know who’s in charge of them and I’ll mention it. I don’t like it any better than you.”

I felt great relief. “Thank you, I said, “and for the berries. I never tasted anything like that.”

“My pleasure. And be sure to come back tomorrow. Maybe my daughter will make some blueberry muffins. I’m sure you’d like one of those too.”

I said I’m certain of that.

And she added as we turned to leave, with me breathing again, “And if you want to talk about any of those other things, you know where to find me.”