Kat with a K

Falling back

I've always hated the springing forward part of daylight savings. I mean, losing time? What's with that? Plus, it always makes me feel jet-lagged, even though it's only an hour. The falling back part, though, that I can get behind. I mean, who wouldn't want an extra hour? It always seemed so magical when I was a kid. I would wake up, read for an hour, go downstairs, and find that it was the same time as it had been when I woke up. (Well, at least as far as I was concerned.) And yes, finding extra time to read has been one of my main objectives for at least 20 years.

Since I had no time-sensitive commitments this morning, I decided last night that I would try to recapture that "extra hour" magic. I didn't change my clock before bed last night, and it worked wonderfully. I woke up naturally around 7:20, stayed cuddled up in bed to finish the book I was reading, got up at 9:30, and found that Teddy TiVo told me it was 8:30. Brilliant.

There's also, of course, the literal dark side of the whole "extra time" issue. The sun is setting awfully early. Honestly, though, that doesn't bother me too much. It just seems right. All this week, it's been feeling like it was time. I've decided that there are two parts of autumn in New England. The first has the hints of cooler air, the crispness, the apples and leaves, the gorgeous light. We're mostly past that now. Now we're on to the cool days and bitter nights, the driving rain, the wind, the darkness. It's deeper, more complex, more difficult, but I still love it. For the past several days it's felt like it's time to settle in, to circle the wagons, to get ready for the long winter. Get out the tea and the candles and the Dickens and the wool.