When I was a kid I had a a cheap blue clock much like the ones Felix Gonzalez-Torres‘ used for Perfect Lovers. I bought the clock with a bucket of arcade tickets because I didn’t want more candy or parachute men and didn’t have enough tickets for that red radio controlled race car. So when I first saw Perfect Lovers in a magazine and after in more periodicals, TV, and even in person a couple years ago at MoMA, I wasn’t too impressed and never paid it too much mind. It was up there with that swirling plastic bag in American Beauty in artistic value to me. But I saw it again in a magazine recently and this time it made me stop and feel that there was more to it.
The clocks are like the relationships in our lives, always changing. We may begin perfectly in synch with the same passions and directions in our lives but like the clocks, over time we will grow seconds apart. Seconds can become minutes that become distant hours. That moment of perfect timing has come and gone. We either choose to re-synch our clocks with each other or find someone else that is at this moment in time already in synch with us.
“Good timing” was something I never really thought I had in relationships. More and more I see it’s because I am resetting my clock to someone’s else’s time thinking we can move forward together. Right or wrong? I don’t know exactly. Its just what I have chosen to do and never have or will regret it. The better and the present question is am I where I want to be now and if I am on my to where I want to be later. When I can say yes to both, “I” can be replaced with “we”.
Soundtrack of Mi Vida: Question – Old 97′s