Stopped Clocks

Time and timing are everything in a world set in a lineal temporal order. Waking up at seven o'clock on a Saturday morning is not everone's cup of tea - I know; I have to do it to arrive on time for my Catalan class. It's dark nowadays; cold, misty...the men collecting the rubbish trawl around Cassà. Only the anticipation of a caffeine fix and the knowledge that I have to make the bus on time allows me to grudgingly slope out of a cosy bed. Clothes are grumpily thrown on before taking a sharp icy breath of November oxygen.
People said that today it was going to rain. It turned out to be a beautiful morning with a Cheshire-cat-smile moon in the early morning sky. There are really so many different times of day, and at this time, all of Cassà is mine. All the way to the bus stop, at least. There, as if waiting, the Ancient Racist Ghoul interrupts my ponderings with idle chatter and pushes her way to the front of the queue when the bus finally deigns to show up. That's one thing I miss about the UK: the queues. It's not that I really like queuing, but most people here wouldn't know what a good queue looked like if Renoir himself painted it. It is a talent in which the British truly excel.

When the bus arrives at the station I always leave last: I'm in no rush now. Before, I would go straight to Jamaica Coffee Shop for a cafe amb llet and a croissant. Now I take a leisurely stroll around Girona, enjoying a city in somniferous magnificence before the mid-morning hubbub of its inhabitants waken the sleeping stones. My route takes me past all the chain stores, up towards the plaça de Catalunya and la Rambla, where the flower sellers set up their street stalls. The vendors attempt to cheat November from chilling their fingers, wrapped up in gloves and winter gear. Immune to the cold are the flowers that brightly cheer the almost empty way, injecting into the scene pink, green, and red, pretty bloodstains hovering above the pavement and taunting the dull grey ground.
The black iron streetlamps, curving their fingers around acorns of light, give the impression that the city could be from another time, an era long ago in the past. I follow them down the central touristic artery of Girona and turn left at the bridge built by monsieur Eiffel, the metallic sound of the cathedral bells chiming the hours. The ducks chuckle away on the river; rippling little waves chase outwards from their paddling feet.

After a while, my feet are drawn to the cafe, halting only to observe the two dozen or so clocks in the window of the underwear shop on the corner. The hands that should be ticking foward have stopped. I don't know which made me think more: this, or a few weeks ago, when all the clocks were furiously hurtling forward at the speed of light to whatever end they had planned. Now all their plans, their motion, are no more. No tick, no tock, no hickory dickory dock, and (thankfully) no mouse. Stopping time, what a wonderful thought - if only we could hold moments in our hands, as we can a watch. Perhaps we can. Perhaps we choose not to because if we knew these moments could last forever they wouldn't be moments. And the magic would wither.

Normally these blogs end on a humourous note. But today I feel...pensive. Realising that everything is as transcendent and fleeting as a singular November dawn.