The Extra Hour
the clocks go back tonight. or they went back last night, depending on when you're reading this. either way, there's an extra hour somewhere in the recent past or the immediate future, and it's worth thinking about what to do with it.
the standard advice is to sleep. use the extra hour to catch up on sleep. this is sensible advice that I've never once followed. the extra hour always feels like it should be used for something more deliberate than sleep, even though sleep is probably the most useful thing.
What the Morning After Feels Like
the morning after the clocks change has a specific quality. the light is different — it's the same light as yesterday, technically, but it arrives at a different time relative to when you wake up. if you wake at your usual time, it's an hour earlier by the sun. the light is softer. the morning feels longer.
the way seasonal change affects daily rhythm is something most people feel but don't articulate. the clock change is one of the more abrupt versions of it — a sudden shift in the relationship between clock time and sun time. your body knows something changed. it takes a few days to adjust.
The October Gift
there's something specific about the October clock change that the March one doesn't have. in March, you lose an hour — it's taken from you, and you feel it for a week. in October, you gain one. it's given back. the psychology of gaining versus losing time is asymmetric: the loss is more painful than the gain is pleasurable, but the gain is still something.
I've started treating the October extra hour as a small annual gift. not a big one — it's an hour, not a day. but an hour is enough to do something you've been meaning to do. read the thing you've been putting off. take the walk you keep skipping. sit somewhere and not do anything in particular. the value of unscheduled time is something we talk about a lot and practice rarely. the extra hour is a small forced experiment in it.
What I Did With It
this year I made coffee slowly and sat by the window and watched the light change. it was the same light as every other morning, arriving an hour earlier than it will tomorrow. it was enough.