Waking up today to a crisp and sunny “Fall Back” Sunday morning I am thinking of another morning a few years ago that left my friends and I a little confused.
We were backpacking on the weekend that happened to be the weekend we observe the autumn time change. Sitting around the camp fire on Saturday night we were discussing the pros and cons of the time change.
We quickly learned who favored it and who absolutely despised it, and why. Grumbles about getting off work all winter in the dark, never seeing the light of day, and the feeling that evenings at home lasted forever dominated the conversation. We all eventually disappeared into our tents and hammocks for the night.
Many of you will NOT be surprised to learn that I love the dark, cold months. I was born in the deep winter and a child of winter I remain.
The long nights take me way back to a time when my brother and I would come in from school or from play, as the faint smell of firewood warmed surrounding homes hung in the air, into a house filled with the smell of mom’s chili and grilled cheese sandwiches inviting us in. A time when time didn’t matter much, when there were no consequences for playing on the floor of your bedroom for hours in pajamas as the snow fell from a dark sky outside.
My most vivid memories as a teenager are of time spent with my friends after dark, with our newfound freedom of driving around with whoever had access to a car and on however much money we could gather together, to cruise the back roads as our town’s lights reflect off the low lying autumn clouds in the distance.
I met my wife in the autumn, and as we raised our child the long evenings were perfect for playing on the toy-filled floor next to our fireplace, in the autumn leaves, or in the falling snow.
But still she prefers the light. Even today, she gives me the stink-eye when I do the happy-dance as the sun sets an hour earlier than it did last night.
The next morning in camp we woke to our routines of reviving the camp fire and beginning our breakfast preparations. Someone asked what time it was. Someone responded with the time, or so they thought. Someone else disagreed and gave their answer.
So began the discussion of the possible times. To add more confusion to the conversation, we were camping one time zone east from home, making the whole conversation a little more interesting.
It quickly became a math game. There were four possibilities being debated. It was either 7am, 8am, 9am, or 10am. There was the question of the cell phones picking up on the change and responding to the weak tower signal. Did watch wearers remember last night to reset the watch. There was the issue of going by the new time zone or by our home time zone when thinking in terms of time. I tapped out of the whole conversation early due to lack of concern for time, hell, I’m on wilderness time, but it was comical to observe the chaos as i sipped hot coffee.
I’ve since traveled with friends who tend to keep a very close eye on the time, no matter where we are or what we’re doing. It’s important that they know that it is 3:22a.m. when they got up to pee on a tree beneath the stars.
Some will try to operate on home time when zone jumping in an attempt to maintain consistent eating and sleeping patterns. Others can adapt to new time zones but still keep a close eye on the clock. I adapt to time changes and zone jumping easily, almost as it they hadn’t occurred.
Time seems never more irrelevant than when traveling by trail. It is either morning, afternoon, evening, night, or somewhere in between. Life demands enough of our time and time demands enough or our attention in the “real” world, so I’ll never understand why exact time matters so much in the wilderness. I have always found backpacking to be the most freeing when living unscheduled and disconnected from the world.
I have a friend who became a missionary in South America in 2012. My wife and I skyped with her on the Sunday evening after the time change. She seemed a bit more tired that night than she had on previous nights.
A funny thing happens between the two hemispheres that I hadn’t considered; Chile’s observation of the time change goes in the opposite direction than us because in the Southern Hemisphere, they are in the opposite season than us.
We were already a one time zone difference, but when we fell back an hour for autumn here they jumped ahead an hour for their spring. What had been our seven pm and her eight pm, in one day, became our six pm and her nine pm. We now had a three hour time difference. We had to be mindful of that for the next few months when connecting with her in real time, as her days were very busy, and by the time nine pm rolled around, she was exhausted.
I appreciate the works of Salvador Dali and his depiction of the clock’s mastery over humans. As one who has never been a stickler for observing time—just ask my wife—I was taken by his art and perspective(s) on the matter.
Not designed to naturally observe time I am always a little late with little concern. I don’t like being unnecessarily held up for long periods of time because it feels the essence life is being stripped away. Does anyone else angle for a ways to become less involved in activities that control their time.
Time has attempted to control me in my past, how imprisoning it felt to be told by the masters of the clock when to go to work, when to eat, when to take a break, and when to go home. But I did what had to be done in that period of life but certainly never want to go back to the state of a being servant to the clock.
It may be a stretch to believe it possible that we can fly off to Never-Never Land to completely escape the restraints of organized time, but still, it’s fun to see just how irrelevant the clock really is when we chose to ignore it from time to time.
It is even more fun to know that life does still go on, usually with less stress, when you create a world for yourself where you aren’t always concerned with where the hands are pointing on that life-governing gadget.
Life should be made up of a series of great moments, not a series of lost minutes. Reclaim a little time each day for yourself that is designed to forget about time.
Shed some of the unnecessary and unfulfilling activities that cause you to be scheduled into oblivion, therefore, becoming a servant of time.
It is easier than you think to slow down, breathe easy, and become the master of the tick tocks of your clock, to slow it down to a pace that is in sync with the life you really desire.
Written in 2014; Revised in 2021
Posts photo, Melting Watch, 1954 by Salvador Dali, was borrowed from the internet.