Daylight Savings

Today daylight savings became a mosquito buzzing through my daily routine. Ages ago I looked forward to the beginning of daylight savings with childish excitement. Daylight savings meant the fireflies were coming back soon. It meant my brothers and I could play outside longer, even after dinner, and it would soon be warm enough to wear shorts and make mud pies under the swing in the spring rain and float paper boats in the puddles under the hemlock. We would come in after a long day of playing Davey Crockett in the yard, our faces sweaty and sticky, black necklaces of dirt and sweat around our necks, our sleeves zebra striped from being dragged across our faces.

Daylight savings meant summer. Kick-the-can at night, baseball out by the chicken house (we were moved to the back after putting a hole through the parlor window), long afternoons reading, soccer, skipping rocks in the pond, riding our bikes out to the road to get the mail, no school. Summer was great. I loved summer when I was little. Somehow there was always something to do. That was summer in Virginia.

Now daylight savings means I have to turn a light on in the morning to find my way to the bathroom, and I drive home as the sun sets in my rear view mirror.