Timeless Clockshop

Rain runs down a glass door, and a warm light illuminates the shop's name on the front window, Timeless Clock Shop and Repair. We don't often get visitors this late in the evening, but you're welcome into our little world of watches and clocks while you dry off from the rain. Our patrons are mainly drawn from the ranks of enthusiasts and vintage collectors, but the clockmaker's favorite customers are the first-timers. He delights in explaining to them the intricacies of these mechanisms and watching them squint as they marvel at the tiny details that characterize his work. However, he may also insist that the visitor takes a cup of tea and sets aside a moment to look at his vast collection of vintage catalogs and magazines. One magazine lays open on a coffee table, revealing an old advertisement for a beautiful golden dress watch with a champagne-colored dial made of delicate linen. The watch is quite thin, so as to fit under the cuff of a shirt without getting caught. One of these very watches is stored in the back of the store behind the clockmaker on a pegboard where he hangs all the watches he is working on. He points out a few of his current favorites, but stops when he reaches one in particular. He turns it over in his hand underneath his work light. The dial is a deep blue sunburst which gleams brilliantly, almost mesmerizingly. There are many beautiful pieces in this particular shop, but before we explore further, let's take a moment for a little wind down exercise. Tonight's wind down is an exercise we call noting. It helps to soothe the mind, and once you've learned it, you can even use it if you wake up in the night. We're going to be counting our breaths, and then just gently noting thoughts and feelings as they arise. We're not trying to change them. We're simply labeling thinking as thinking, feeling as feeling. It may sound incredibly simple, but it can help to create distance between ourselves and the thought and ourselves and the feeling so we don't get so involved in it. That, in turn, creates a more restful state of mind, in other words, the perfect conditions for gentle, restful sleep. So to begin, just take a moment or two to get comfortable. Make sure you're nice and cool. Just starting with some big, deep breaths, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. And with the next out-breath, allow the breath to return to its natural rhythm, in and out through the nose, and feeling the weight of the body pressing you down into your bed. And in your own time, starting to count the breaths as they pass, one with the rise, two with the fall, just up to a count of 10. When you get to 10, you can stop and start again at one. And remember, any time you get distracted, the moment you realize you're...