I wish time away and then I want it back

Let there be light

April looms, just around the corner. This weekend the clocks spring forward! An extra hour of sunlight in the evening. Albeit at the cost of a snuggly hour spent in bed on Sunday. It’s worth it. And that’s coming from a self proclaimed ‘very sleepy girly’. I can hardly wait. It’s the true marker of winter coming to a close. Not the spring solstice. Not the yellow daffodils breaking their way up through the cold earth before the time is right. Not even the first mild day in March when if you’re brave enough you don’t really need to wear a coat. That’s why they call it British Summer Time, baby! 

Long drawn out evenings making their way in. Evening lasts longer, suspended in time as skies turn from pale icy blue to rich deep navy. The sun persists, clinging on. Putting up a stubborn fight like a child not wanting to go to bed. From the dead of winter is when I first start to wait, tracking the time the sun sets each day. Announcing to anyone who’ll listen when we pass into a new hour. Now it sets at 4pm! Now 5! 6! I hate to think of my life spent waiting. Wishing time away. But it pulls me through the darkest of days, and I mean that in the very literal sense. 

Then, poof! Spring is finally here! It lasts for all but a moment. Blink and blossom is gone. I feel that just like me, the buds spend much time laying in wait. Ready for the moment to shake off the cold and sit beneath the warming rays of the sun. Autumn lingers, languishing. Leaves turn sickly and die slowly leaving destructive mulch in their wake. Summer does not like to go quietly. The landscape turns a sea of angry reds, burning gaping holes into lonely trees. I think I’m repeating myself. Hard not to I suppose. When the same seasons come around each year, planting their little seeds of inspiration in my brain. The patterns and lifecycles of nature repeat themselves, with predictability and consistency. It’s my perspective that only changes. Looking for answers to newfound questions. For signs relating to a problem that I didn’t have this time a year ago. Seeing beauty in the details of what I maybe once overlooked. 

I’m still not writing as much as I want to still not investing as much time but words are coming, easier than they have been. Just like leaves returning to the trees. Their rightful place. Reunited. Time is really the thing I don’t have. It seems to slip through my fingers like sand. Remnants of a broken hourglass. It turns to dust and gets blown away by the wind. I can’t seem to fit it all in and have very much been neglecting some areas that I wish I hadn’t. I’m wishful that long drawn out evenings will bring with them a magical flexing and bending of time. Warping the hours into endless days. Finding a way to do everything it is I want to do, unimpeded. 

Photo by Ryan Yao on Unsplash

Daisy Time
By Marjorie Pickthall

See, the grass is full of stars,
Fallen in their brightness;
Hearts they have of shining gold,
Rays of shining whiteness.

Buttercups have honeyed hearts,
Bees they love the clover,
But I love the daisies' dance
All the meadow over.

Blow, O blow, you happy winds,
Singing summer's praises,
Up the field and down the field
A-dancing with the daisies.