An Hour Lost

Today is my least favorite day of the year: the day when we change the clocks to "spring ahead," meaning that we lose an hour, an hour that will not be restored to us until we change the clocks again in the fall.

I have long hated Daylight Savings Time because I prefer my daylight in the morning to the evening. But I hate it even more now that I live in Indiana, which for some unaccountable reason is in the Eastern time zone when by all rights it should be in Central time. It is so dark here in the mornings! In fact, I just checked on the time for the sunrise today in Greencastle, and it was 8:04, eight minutes ago. How can there be a place where the sun doesn't rise until EIGHT O'CLOCK in the morning?

I know this shouldn't matter to someone who claims to get up every day at five, when it's dark outside, anyway. But true confession: it's been some time since I've gotten up at five. And somehow it's just harder to get up when even the promise of daylight is so far away.

I write this post not just to complain about Daylight Savings Time, however, but because the title of my blog is "An Hour a Day." If ever it was brought home to me how important an hour can be, it's on this day once a year when I'm cheated out of one. I will be sluggish and cranky all week, missing my hour, which now, in fond imagination, I would have spent writing the first page of a new novel, or writing a poem, or reading a book to remember forever, or walking in the DePauw University Nature Park, or snuggling under my covers for another sweet stretch of sleep.

Oh, hour gone, I miss you! May I cherish all your brothers and sisters, and never take a single one for granted.