Saving What Daylight?

It was time to change the clocks...again. I have always disliked this procedure, and how it messes with my sleep life. I notice a few more people getting disgruntled with it too, as I travel further along this path of life.

I rarely use an alarm clock, my body becomes so programmed to wake at a certain time. When Skyler started high school and had to get up earlier, I just re-programmed myself to wake up earlier too. It takes a few days of waking up much earlier than the time required, looking at the clock in panic in case I’ve overslept, but always settles into where I wake at the right time, with a window of a few minutes here and there. I hate being jolted out of sleep; this is a better way for me. And I don’t have to wake Evie up either, I can just slide gently out of bed and go throw pillows or balled-up clothes at Skyler (I’m not climbing the loft bed in the dark first thing in the morning) to wake him up. (Yes, he has an alarm clock, but it’s just one of the things Mom does for him, and we get a bit of chat time after he’s had his shower and smoothie).

But then comes the inevitable time change to mess me up. Sure I like the "extra" hour, but don’t really need it, since I’m now awake an hour earlier on the new time! I like how someone wrote in to the Globe and Mail about how Daylight Savings Time was introduced for the farmers, but that the only province in Canada that isn’t on DST, is Saskatchewan, a fairly major farming province!

Time is reasonably fluid, Dali knew that. OK, right now it’s early morning, it’s dark (I’m still on the "old" time), and there’s some light on the horizon. What time is it? Time is a fairly fluid thing. It could be anywhere from 5 am to 7 am. Up in Thunder Bay, which is very close to the dividing line between time zones, one notices oddities with time of day vs sun position. In the summer, the sun doesn’t actually SET until 10 pm, then you have that half hour or so of twilight (Edward, Edward?) , and then the kids will finally go to sleep! It’s the opposite in winter, with dawn coming so late in the morning. I can remember (pre-children) lying in bed at 9 am still in relative darkness. It felt so....Arctic.
And there of course, time is totally skewed. Bob spent a summer working in Resolute, as far north a community as we have in Canada, I believe. He watched the sun just go around and around the horizon, but never set. Winters must be brutal, and suicide rates are high. It doesn’t really matter what time the clock says then. What joy people in the north must have when the horizon starts to light up again! I wonder if they are forced to adapt to Daylight Savings Time also?

So I’ve just thrown my pillow at Skyler to wake him up, and see that it’s a fair brighter outside for him at 6:45 than it was last week. I do remember being in high school and hating, absolutely hating, to wake up in the dark. (Then I joined the military...."Early waking" takes a whole different meaning, especially when there’s bagpipes involved.) So with a bit of light in the early morning, maybe a whole generation of kids his age are happier with the time change. So they have to walk home from after-school activities in the dark, but they’re probably happier with that too.

So as with many things, we just accept the good side, and move on with our day!