The Sundial
Photo by Trudy Gaba
Walking up and down the steps of Hobbs on any given day, I notice it cleverly hidden under the shade of the overhanging tree. If you're looking at the sundial with your back to Hopwood, on one of the sides of the base there is an engraving that says "Erected by the Class of [1905]." The plate has a fitting quote in relation to the meaning of the sundial, "Grow Old with Me the Best is Yet to Be," from the title of a poem by Robert Browning. Besides the intricate positioning of the standard numbers, lines, and grids on the dial plate, the other thing that is of great importance is that the sundial is broken; it's missing a piece called the gnomon, which function is to cast the shadow from the Sun onto the sundial.
The sundial takes on more than one meaning. To most, the sundial’s only use is to measure the positioning of the sun throughout the day, but according to John H. Lienhard, author of "Engines of Our Ingenuity," the sundial takes on a more metaphorical meaning. He states that the sundial not only “display[s] the sun circling through the heavens” but it also “show[s] our day unfolding around us.” The sundial represents the passing of time and the continuation of life. So what happens when it breaks? I envision months, years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds running together, forming this continuous loop where there is no differentiation between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. For some college students daily life is so. Always being pressed for time and having many obligations to uphold can sometimes make you feel like the days of the week are running together. It’s as if the broken sundial in a way is telling college students that the old saying, “Take each day one day at a time” is not applicable to college life, that to make it through a successful year, you must always look ahead and anticipate things that have yet to come.
--Trudy Gaba