I call this night Extra Hour Eve. It is my favorite 48 hours of the year. It is a gift that no person can give you. It is an immeasurable luxury, finite in value. Sixty minutes. Time. Think about how often throughout the year we long for more time. I don't mean any BIG, important sense of the longing--not for a clock to turn back on itself and allow us to right our wrongs or pursue abandoned dreams. I mean all the little moments that get lost in a day. All the mornings you leave for work with your hair in a clip because there wasn't time to fix it. Or the evenings when you go to bed with laundry piled in the baskets and dishes in the sink because it's already 11 o'clock and you're exhausted. Think of the traffic fines paid because you were running late, or the errors in an assignment you didn't have time to fix, or the first few moments of a movie left unseen because the line at the snackbar was too long. Irritations that fester; irritations that demand only a moment, or two, or ten. Imagine this extra hour doled out as needed, fragments at a time.
This is my day. A celebration that needs no preparation. No expectations. I love the little surprise at bedtime when I can say--wait! I can stay up a little longer! I love waking up before the sound of the alarm, feeling as refreshed as I would if I'd ignored it. Today will seem so short with the early darkness. The evening stretched forever. For weeks I'll say, "Is it only 7 o'clock?" and I'll marvel at the hours left to live the day.
It's a weird thing, this hour. Right now, like a stutter between Saturday and Sunday. It'll be absorbed soon enough, folded up in the rush of life. But for now, I'll enjoy the conundrum, welcoming winter, slowing down to savor.