So, tonight is Daylight Savings Time... again!

Just like Groundhog Day, Daylight Savings Time comes around every year and always seems to promote some sort of humorous mischief. Tonight, I have one daughter spending the night at a friend's house. Meanwhile, my mother is introducing my younger daughter, to her not so distant future retirement community. Then we are going out for a "special" dinner. So, I'm thinking to myself, "Self, what are you doing to celebrate daylight savings time? Are you stuck in some sort of Groundhog repetition where you want to paddle, ride a bike, run, camp, experience the outdoors to a greater degree; yet, seem relegated to the domestic / professional repetition of late winter mediocrity?"

I don't mean to promote catharsis. Daylight Savings Time is for me, a special time. Similar to the Solstice, Equinox, Halloween, Christmas, etc. (Pretty much in that order), Daylight Savings Time represents new beginnings, or at least more "time" to address the personal improvements that most initiate as New Year's Resolutions. I wait for this occasion.

So, tonight, my plan is to attempt a loose outline for creating time to enjoy the outdoors more often. Perhaps, setting a mental calendar to pencil in evening river sessions, morning workouts, and more walks in the woods. Of course, the morning calisthenics will suffer as soon as I wake up and see that it looks like an hour before I usually roll out of bed. Still, the days will begin to get longer on both sides and perhaps, I will re-develop that bikini attracting body of yesteryear.

The point is extended light. I look forward to exorcising the dark and celebrating the light. Mental rejuvenation via physical rehabilitation all in response to the sun. Like the Azalea buds just beginning to pop on the bushes in front of my home, the life inside will begin to push it's way back out, to find greater adventures, in more fresh spaces than the couch in front of the TV. It's time to prepare for the Equinox, and the leading longer days. Thank goodness, for daylight savings time!

Hartley