The Fake-out

I changed all our clocks at 7:00 last night, just before David and I went out to dinner at this snug little place called Camp, a restaurant built to look like a cabin, with rough-hewn pine tables, and kids’ names carved into them.Trying to honor the spirit of the place I ordered the meatloaf, which arrived looking like a big, very old, softball, under a brown sauce. OK that was a step too far, I thought, and I concentrated instead on my salad and my zucchini and summer squash mix, knowing the eating machine that is my husband would have no trouble polishing off the meatloaf-ball if we brought it home with usWhich we did and immediately queued up the second episode of The Americans, which I had slept through the first time I’d tried to watch it earlier this week. This time I fell asleep again, even earlier in the episode than before, and woke to an empty living room. Where was David? For a minute I thought he’d been 'taken', along with our meatball horror of horrors!But no. There he was in the bedroom, snoozing away.On walking in there I saw that even though really in the world it was just 9:50, our clock read 10:50 because, of course I had jumped it ahead before we went out to eat. No surprises for me! I see what’s coming! I thought. I’ll wake at 6:00 tomorrow and there'll be no sign of daylight. I'll write a post on my blog and answer 20 emails and then watch the sun come up and it will be so early still and the further jobs of the day an eternity away!Only it doesn’t work like that and how can I forget that every year? Because I did get up before the sun but now here it is almost 9:30 and no emails answered at all, just a lot of noodling around online reading the Globe and the Times and catching Lena Dunham's clips from  last night's SNL. Because what happens on the second Saturday in March is we lose an hour, which I didn’t properly remember until 20 minutes ago when I read today's posting on the blog of my cherished old friend Milton Brasher-Cunningham, who just nails it every time out and for sure nailed it late last night with an original poem on the time change.I reprint it here but go to his blog anyway and try following it. He writes every day in Lent. It's a gift to us all.So enjoy the light, as I mean to do now too, freshly tutored by my friend.  What am I doing writing a lot of emails on a Sunday anyway?

Savings sonnet  

 by Milton Brasher-Cunningham 

the earth had a way of tilting its headto set up the space for each seasona delicate dance a wonderful threadfrom sunny to snowy to freezin’ the days first grew short and then they grew longas the winter conceded to springbut we have decided nature was wronga new seasonal schedule to bring spring forward we said — move time up an hourthe change will make march days seem longerthere isn’t more sun — we don’t have that pow’rwe’ve just shown that our hubris is stronger than our logical thought or common senseas kids wait in the dark for their buswhy can we not live in this present tenseand stop winding ourselves in a fuss this silly rhyme has one conclusionwe’re quite content with our illusion   

Old Time vs. New

The old timepieces were more forgiving than all the new kind, as this sweet poem testifies. I offer it on this day with its oncoming plunge into early darkness later on.  It's called "Time Change" but I have no record of its author. Lovely anyway: 

Time is different with a digital watch.The minutes that used to limp aroundThe small dial on my left wristCome in early these daysLike the train. I wound it myself thenBut now time has changed.It jumps up at mePulsing Hours minutes seconds even daysInto then.My new watch saysIt’s now or never, kid. Whatever became of o’clock?You could make it last as long as an ice barOr another kiss,Walk in lateAnd still be on time.

 

It's Now or Never, Kid

Here is a thought for this newly hatched day, when we woke amazed by the streaming golden light flooding in our windows at 6am (only 6:00!) Here is a thought for this first day of violet evening coming, as it does in my part of the world, with the children scarce home from school.

It's a poem called 'Time Change' by Gloria Lewyn that I copied out of a magazine in the days when my babies napped away the afternoons. It goes like this: 

Time is different with a digital watch.

The minutes that used to limp around

The small dial on my left wrist

Come in early these days

Like the train.

I wound it myself then

But now time has changed.

It jumps up at me

Pulsing

Hours minutes seconds even days

Into then.

My new watch says

It’s now or never, kid.

Whatever became of o’clock?

You could make it last as long as an ice bar

Or another kiss,

Walk in late

And still be on time.

I found it so long ago as it seems to me now, and yet its words shiver me still.  It's now or never, kid. 

Let's make it now.