"Falling Back..."

One of the best days of the year for me is when standard time "springs forward" to begin Daylight Savings Time. I don't care if it is still dark in the mornings when I roll out of bed and prepare for the day. I know that when I arrive home from work the sun is still scheduled to keep its face shining above the horizon for an extra hour. The promise of spring, with the advancing of the clock hands, has officially, in my mind, come to fruition.

Conversely, one of my least favorite days is when we revert back to standard time. Sure my body senses for a few days that it is getting extra time to rest, but when nightfall arrives as I am pulling into my driveway depresses me. It wouldn't do for me to live in Alaska. Too much perpetual darkness.

The time change doesn't seem to affect my wife, Judi, at all. Her internal time clock never changes. When 11 p.m. arrives (now 10 p.m.) she's in a dead sleep on the couch. I, on the other hand, have at least a couple of hours to go before I feel weary. She tells me, "It's all in your head." I detest people who state the obvious.

So much am I an adherent to appreciating longer days that I mark on my calendar in red the first day after the beginning of winter. That is the date when the days begin to grown incrementally longer and we begin again the slow but progressive march to the date (also marked in red) when daylight savings time arrives. As of this date there are forty-six days to go before the calendar turns over to December 23rd; the day after this year's date when winter officially arrives. I'm ticking each day off one by one. The promise of spring and longer, warmer days. It can't come soon enough for me.