Lost Daylight Time

I am not quite sure why we have Daylight Savings Time.  And why is it called that?  There is no daylight saved.  One cannot save daylight, no matter how powerful one is.  Perhaps, if there was a "God," that being could save some daylight and then parse it out when needed.  But a God-like being would never do that, as we all know, because those God-like beings never intercede on the Small People's behalf, so all that daylight that he/she might have saved would, once again, be wasted. And what would they do with the "saved" daylight anyway?  It's not exactly the thing you can wrap up and give as a gift.  What a waste of daylight that would be.  "Oh, cool, thanks God for this great box of daylight and .... oh, shit, it's gone.  Couldn't you just have given me a pass to heaven or the winning lottery numbers for Saturday or a new toaster?  Saved daylight didn't work out so well for me, but hey, don't want to piss off God so I will just say thanks and move on.....OK"  No lightening bolts, please.

I digress.  Daylight Savings Time does not save daylight, it just rearranges the hours.  It should be  called something like Rearranged Daylight Time.  Or Daylight Shifting Program.  (I am trying to come up with a cool acronym but haven't hit on one yet, will continue to work on that.  SHOD?  Shifting Hours of Daylight?  Maybe.)  But no daylight is saved, as I mentioned above. 

When we turned the clocks ahead a few weeks ago, it was nice because it was very dark again in the morning. Hard to get out of bed, yes, but better to walk the dogs.  I like it dark when the dogs and I set out on our morning walk. I like it really dark. (I like December for that reason.)   I don't even care if it is still marginally dark when we finish the walk, 40 - 50 minutes later but that's how it is now.  I understand that the way the earth tilts on its axis, no matter if we have DST or not, by the summer the mornings will be lighter.  I get that.  So the only good thing to me about turning our clocks ahead an hour is that the advent of DST gives me a few more weeks of darkness (and semi-darkness) that I would not get without DST.

Walking the dogs at 6:25 in the morning is so nice, and so dark and quiet.  There is a moment, around 6:30 when the sky begins to lighten.  In just one minute the sky bleeds from black towards dark blue. In another moment (and it just takes a moment) the sky is definitely not black and it is definitely dark blue.  And just one more click takes it from dark blue to darkish blue. (A fine distinction.)  The dogs and I stop then and we wait.  We wait for just a blip of time, maybe 15 seconds, and the color of the sky changes again, to the deep blue that you only get before the sun comes up but you know it is no longer night time. The dogs don't care but they are happy to wait with me because I care.
Then the sky quickly gets lighter and lighter and by the time we are back home it's light enough to call it Day. 

So we start walking at night and we finish at day.  It's a good way to start each day.  Even without dogs, it's worth getting up out of a warm, cozy bed and putting on your shoes and jacket (and pants, of course) and heading out before dawn arrives.  Look around. It's beautiful.

I cannot, with this loaner computer that I now use, put in a photo of dawn or sunrise or daybreak.  Use your imagination. You can see it. You know it.  It's right there........

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