Sun Time

Our friends who moved gave us a plastic toy ATV.  Clothilde loves it, and Ethan does too - he no longer has to carry her, but ties it to his belt and pulls her around on it while he does the chores.

I woke up tired today.  I always know it's going to be a rough day when I wake up tired like that.  And I'm one of the few people I know of who doesn't use caffeine - at all.  No coffee, no tea (except mint and chamomile, of course), no soda, not even chocolate.  I can't handle it.  It's like cocaine for me, I become manic for days, and then it's ugly.  So when I'm tired, I'm just plain tired.  There's no plan B.

I think part of this is still feeling discombobulated from the time change.  Daylight Savings is one of the things I can really complain about.  I just wish they would stick to one time all year.  It's a pain to wake up an hour earlier, but for us it is even more disruptive, because we rely on Sun Time.

To everyone else who is on Clock Time, this can be difficult to understand.  If you live disconnected from hours of daylight, in jobs that are easily lit up by electricity, it is impossible to understand how Sun Time, and even moon cycles, could affect you.  (The full moon is rising when the sun is setting, making it possible to work later from the light).  I think that even so, this mis-match of Sun Time and Clock Time, messes with us on a deeper level.

A long time ago, people still had time zones.  In Europe, towns everywhere had a clock tower that was set with 12 O'clock when the sun was at the highest point.  This was the origin of time zones, because of course as you travelled, noon would shift a tiny bit as you went along, according to the sun.  With the broad time zones we have now, and Daylight Savings, our 6pm is close to solar 4 pm.  The noon we celebrate is not actually noon.  It's just one more of those things in which we are cut off from reality.

For us, the time change makes the day suddenly very late, and still working within the Sun Time for our chores, as well as Clock Time for everything else, is a challenge.  Our days of easily getting more sleep during the winter are gone.  When everything depends on us working as hard as possible to set up this new year, new season, we are tired again.

The consolation is that it makes an afternoon nap possible - if the 2-year old is willing.