What's Goin' On?

A friend asked me the other day if I had abandoned my blog....I told her, no, I had not but I do admit that I am busy.  It's late spring here in NE Ohio and it is just a busy time.  The trees are out, the soil is dry, the weeds are growing.  There are gardens to plant and acres to mow, trails to walk and pictures to take.  Birds are migrating in and out and this year, the first in a several years, I've actually been able to take the time to participate in one of my favorite hobbies, birdwatching.  Last week, I snagged a sighting of a Baltimore Oriole, one of the first sightings in my area. 

In my effort to gain marketable skills, I've also taken on some extra writing projects and am managing the Portage Park District's Facebook page.  That takes time.  Hopefully, in a couple of weeks I'll lead some hikes, right now I'm busy. 

Then there are the trips...one very soon sends me to Indiana to my daughter's college graduation ceremony then another right after to an annual get together in Virginia for AT hikers.  This is an event where I see long time friends, friends I see only at this event...there is a lot of talking and rocking on the front porch of the Hiker's Inn, laughing, wine drinking and walking...that's Trail Days.  I can't wait.  I am busy.

No one really ever thinks of time until there isn't enough of it or if you face an event that reminds you that there REALLY never is enough.  Recently, I bought something that has a 20 year warranty ....standing there I did the math and realized that wow...20 years...I'll be an age that I never even thought I would get to when I was young and now, gosh it is only 20 years away.  An age where my health may not be so good, where I will no longer be a great gardener or able to walk very far in pursuit of that great bird, when no longer will I enjoy riding the lawn tractor over the bumps in my yard nor ride my bike on the Tow Path.  These thoughts make me vow that starting now, I'll enjoy each moment and do the things I need to do to stay able to do those things I love for a very, long time.

Time, Time....Its Tickin'

Growing up in Indiana, I never had to worry about the time change.  It never did.  Seasons came and went with a natural rhythm and we humans adapted.  Farmers plowed in the pre-dawn light and we stood outside on the cold street in skirts in the dark waiting for the bus to take us to school.  We huddled in clumps for security and warmth, girls on one side of the street, boys on the other.  Sometimes, when it was really cold, we stood together on a neighbor’s porch, thankfully, running to board when the big, yellow bus came to a stop.  No one worried about us out there in the dark by ourselves…it was a growing up ritual, waiting for the bus in the dark.  And time marched decisively over us with no thought for our petty concerns.

Indiana succumbed, finally, to the pressure of the world and adopted Daylight Savings Time in April of 2006.  Thinking that it was more important to manipulate time for its own purposes than to live by the cycles of nature, they caved to all 48 of the other states need to control nature.  The first year I ‘sprang’ my clocks forward I was never right.  It was like my body said, “what the ????” and refused to ever catch up that lost hour of sleep.  It wandered the halls in confusion, sleep deprived and slightly “off” for the 7 months of Day Light savings time.  I kept encouraging it to get with the time but it refused.  You could tell it was not just me that was suffering because everyone spent that first summer feeling just a little like they were always in some kind of time warp.  Glazed eyes and yawning we welcomed the fall and its change back to ‘normal’.

I live in Ohio now so Buckeyes have been springing forward and falling back since time began evidently without consequence.  I still feel slightly boggled the first week or two after the switch but feed my body extra caffeine and use the time switch as an excuse to sleep more and be late to work.  “Oh, yeah, I’m trying to catch that lost hour of sleep”, I tell my boss….he’s not buying it.

So, those of us old enough to remember when time didn’t change because we wanted more daylight to do business with New York, to remember when neighbors didn’t mind if cold children huddled on porches, old enough to remember that darkness really isn’t scary and that sunrises can be inspiring, will need a little latitude from you for a few days as we wander around trying to find our place in time again, muttering under our breath about how we don’t understand why we have to change time to begin with.   Don’t blame it on the farmers because they have always done there thing by the sun’s rhythms and will continue to do it whether the clock says it’s time to or not.