I watched the sun rise this morning. It was lovely, but I'd already been up for
almost two hours. I've no problem with
going to bed in the dark, but I really hate getting up while it's still
dark. Getting up before daylight reminds
me too much of long ago mornings when I stumbled in the dark to dress without
waking the younger kids, making my shivering way to the barn, and too many
early mornings picking fruit, berries, potatoes, etc. while the plants were
cold and wet. Early morning cold and
dampness is different from winter cold, somehow it feels more miserable. For those of us who dislike morning darkness,
but enjoy the shadowed coolness of evening, Daylight Savings Time is a
disaster. I think some of us come into
this life preprogrammed for dawn to dusk; we're not ready to start our day
before the sun comes up and we're not ready to sleep until the night is dark
and cool.
Someone must profit from the time change or it wouldn't
still be thrust on us twice each year. Every legislative session someone
introduces a bill to end the practice, but it never makes it out of committee. Not many people like it; golfers seem to be
the exception. It costs my state over a
million dollars each year, and almost every year some school children are injured
or killed walking to school in the dark or pre-dawn hazy light. Farmers hate
it--cows can't tell time--it leaves students and employees dragging for a week
or two of adjustment, and people like me who never quite adjust, grumble a lot
and get cranky.
Daylight Savings Time is my one complaint about spring. I love almost everything else about
spring. I love seeing the early crocuses
bloom, sometimes before the snow is quite gone.
I eagerly watch for tulips and daffodils to poke through the ground, the
grass to turn green, and that faint aura of green that precedes leaves on the
trees. I celebrate being able to wear a
sweatshirt instead of a coat. Spring even smells different and I'm so ready for
it this year. The past couple of days have been wonderful after such a long,
cold winter. I just don't want to force myself out of bed while it's still dark
outside.
2 comments:
It is a challenge to adjust to the time change. We diabetics pay a price each time it happens, too, especially those of us on insulin. I have to change settings on my insulin pump, my glucose machine, etc. Good times. But I do enjoy having more light in the evenings. I don't see well in the dark, so I guess that's one plus from "springing forward." ;)
I don't understand the point of Daylight Saving Time. Why do we still do it?
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