Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...

This clock is special to me. I believe it was a wedding gift for my parents, but as long as I can remember it has hung in our kitchen. The loud ticking it makes is distinctive only to someone who has grown up listening to it, catching it when the room falls silent, or there is a lull in the conversation.

I remember one time when my grandmother was babysitting my sister and I. My sister, being younger, was already in bed, but my grandmother was painting my nails at the kitchen table. I was silent, watching her, when she suddenly stopped and asked what that noise was. I listened, and couldn't hear anything but the clock. When I told her that was all I could hear, she realized that was the unidentified noise, and that she had thought it was a bomb. Of course this freaked me out a little bit, but I realize now that it was just another sound to me, and now it's a sound of my childhood.

When my dad was growing up, his grandparents had a Chelsea Ship's Clock, similar to this one, that was his childhood clock. Later, it appeared in my grandparent's (his parent's) house, and though it was familiar to me, it wasn't our clock.
For my dad's birthday one year recently, my grandparent's gave him the Chelsea clock, and the wooden one became mine.

Now it hangs in my kitchen, ticking away in its ever familiar rhythm.