It's About Time
If this is okay, why do we do it at 2 a.m. on a Sunday?
It’s early November in America, a tenuous time that finds millions of Americans about to confront a question of critical importance. Not that question of critical importance. The other one.
How will you use your Extra Hour?
Oh, as if there’s anything else going on these days?
This is the weekend we turn our clocks back, gifting ourselves the time to pursue…what?
Not all of us will receive this gift. There will be no Extra Hour for Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation). No Extra Hour for Hawaii. Pondering this factoid leads me to check my Substack subscriber report, which indicates I have zero subscribers in Arizona or Hawaii, despite being read in 27 countries and 35 U.S. states. (Time spent — 2 minutes.) This, in turn, leads me down the long rabbit hole of seeing where my subscribers do live. (8 minutes gone.) Which is followed by messaging my friend in Arizona and my cousin in Hawaii to say an overdue “hello.” (4 minutes!)
It’s only Friday, the clock change is still 36 hours away, and I’m frittering my Extra Hour away well before it’s in the bank.
In an election season that’s felt positively endless, I suspect I’m not the only one who’d gladly continue waking up in the dark to avoid an extra hour of consciousness. Wouldn’t it be better to move the entire calendar ahead a few days? Or a few years? But this is not to be. Like the fruitcake we received and brought to someone else’s party only to have it show up at our house the following month, the Extra Hour is back. And, like that fruit cake, I’ve got absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with it. (Update -- Time spent messaging with my friend in Arizona and planning a time to talk — 4 minutes.)1
If this is a good thing, why are we doing it at 2 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday? If it was a good thing, we’d be doing it at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday. We’d be doing it with intention — not under cover of darkness. If I told you I was planning to drop off a fruitcake at your house at 2 o’clock in the morning on a Sunday, what would you think?
As a brilliant philosopher once said, “The thing about time is that time isn’t really real.” (Time spent pausing to listen to James Taylor’s Secret O’ Life — 3 minutes, 35 seconds 7 minutes. I love that song, so I listened twice.) True. And we could have it worse. China, which spans five time zones, has one time zone for the entire country, which means a lot of people wake up in the dark, all year long. Singapore’s in the wrong time zone for its location — and it’s not the only country in that situation. (¡Hola, Spain!) Meanwhile, Australia — the same size as the US — has five standard time zones, including two on the half hour and one at 45 minutes past.
One little hour shouldn’t bother me nearly as much as it does. For the last six-plus years, I’ve had a stunningly tenuous relationship with time. Moving to Singapore in 2018 meant moving twelve (or thirteen, depending on the time of year) time zones away from friends and family, including my young-adult children. The upside-down-ness of that time difference felt like being a new mom all over again, blessed with babies who couldn’t tell night from day. I’d call my kids over my morning coffee when they were already out for the evening. My kids would call me for an early-morning chat when I was already out for the evening. (Time I just spent staring out the window reminiscing about Singapore instead of writing – 14 minutes. Which still counts as writing, right?)
Things didn’t improve when we returned to the States. For four years now, I’ve stayed up until midnight twice a month to meet online with my Singapore Writers’ Group over coffee (for them) and wine (for me). I do the same once a month with my Singapore Book Group. And with a cohort from my Singapore Film Group who, like me, have scattered across the globe. In fact, that’s our name — FLAG (Film Lovers Across the Globe). You know that saying, “It’s always 5 o’clock somewhere?” Well it is. And in my case, there’s an excellent chance I know someone who lives there. (Total time spent chatting on WhatsApp with a friend in Australia this week – 11 minutes.)
Soon after we returned to the States, we moved from the East Coast to California, where things got more complicated. The time difference from Singapore shifted to fifteen hours, something I could calculate only by doing a multistep conversion from Pacific Time to Eastern Time to Singapore Time (plus a few exponents and a binomial equation I learned in high school). Even worse, everyone I worked with during the day was on the East Coast.
My watch was on Pacific Time, my brain was on Eastern Time, my evenings were on Singapore Time. I got so used to adding three hours to whatever time I saw on my watch that even today, after we’ve moved back to New Jersey, my watch remains on Pacific Time.
I have no intention of moving my watch ahead three hours to Eastern Time. Not gonna happen. But this weekend, I’ll move it back one.
Nothing about my loose relationship with time — none of it — makes it easier for me to deal with the Extra Hour. Every year, I fall for its promise, only to spend some portion of my Extra Hour running errands, cleaning my hair out of the drain, or melting all the ice in our freezer so my husband can’t chew ice in my presence. (If he asks, we had a freak power outage, okay?)
In the end, I’ve found the only way I can make peace with the Extra Hour is to use it more than once, declaring multiple hours my Extra Hour until I’m satisfied I used it well. As you may have noticed, there’s a decent argument I used it one time already, on credit. Here, then, are this year’s Extra Hour Goals:
Read a book.
Eat some really good ice cream.
Watch the last of the yellow leaves fall from the tree in the front yard.
Vote. (Actually, already did this. It took the whole hour but was worth it.)
Open a second box of Frosted Bite-Size Blueberry Shredded Wheat to confirm the quality control issues in the first box weren’t an aberration.
Deep breathe.
Go for a walk with my sweetie.
Deep breathe while going for a walk with my sweetie.
So many possibilities, so little time. I make no promises, but I’ll do my best. Same time next year?
P.S.(A.) — If you haven’t voted yet, then you know exactly how to use your Extra Hour. Spend any remaining time reading my recent interview as CK Steefel’s Funny AF Woman #15! Now that’s an Extra Hour well spent!
It turns out the Substack subscriber report is wrong about Arizona. It’s possible my friend in Phoenix drives to California to read my essays, but I doubt it. What’s up with that, Substack?
Hello from way down in the half hour Australia zone. This was a very funny read. I especially love the fruit cake analogy!
in lieu of moving our clocks back an hour, i support moving our days ahead until we are firmly in december and past all of this election anxiety!