My cuckoo clock went bananas.  Every day, I am supposed to reset the winding mechanism by pulling the chains to the top, where they slowly wind down and through some miracle of clock-making, make it run all day (even if it does not keep proper time).

Turns out if the long chains with pinecone-shaped weights become obstructed by a LaGrE pile of tOyS, it will stop running.  The Professor noticed its silence, even though I had been sitting next to it for hours.  When I pulled the chain to restart it, all the cuckoos it missed came rapid-fire jumbling out like some possessed … 100 year old bird.  It had so many accumulated proclamations, I thought it was going to sprain itself.

The clock reminds me of my writing.  When I finally started to write in earnest, the words came tumbling out so fast I thought I was going to pop a brain goiter.  If my energy gets stuck on a large pile of momhood’s clutter, I’m stuck there until I can pull my own chain and get going again.  The kids know when something is off.  And some days, arguably, much of what comes out when I’m working could be cuckoo.  I’ll stop the analogy there.

Tick, tock… keep that pendulum swinging…