DAY 21: SUMMER TIME

Andrea 21 – Hi Miri, have you ever wondered about why daylight savings time exists? Nowadays we all talk about sustainability: until a few years ago it was something only politicians or economists would talk about, then the big movements arrived (from Greenpeace to Greta) and today that human’s sustainability is the reason why we are all in lockdown, the issue is even more present. Well, daylight savings time is the most ancient measure of sustainability: every year in March we move the clock’s hands forward in order to exploit daylight, primary source of energy, more. So I thought that I didn’t want to think as everybody else did today. To me, daylight savings time is not an hour less, it’s an opportunity. I turned the approach to the day upside down: I don’t have less time to do things because I woke up an hour later, I have the chance to do them better, with an extra hour of light. Maybe it’s because I’m reading a book titled “Doing twice the things in half the time”, but I decided that today was going to be a constructive day. And so I build: a home. We were Cecilia and I. She is 8 but strong enough to help me. She took care of the living room and the kitchen, and since she wasn’t tired, she took care of the pool and the garden as well, with the trees. We have pizzas on the kitchen table as well. I took care of the bedrooms, the bathroom and the study. Unfortunately, because of the quarantine, no contractor came to help us. So we did it by ourselves. Brick by brick. The last time I played with Lego was in Paris, two years ago, during a meeting. Today was better, my imagination was freer, I didn’t remember it that way. We played together for an hour. Daylight savings time.

Miriam 21 – Dear Andre, today I realized how important this day has been for me these past years, how exciting was for me the idea of having one extra hour of light. And I realized it by chance, unintentionally, like most of the emotions trying to “assault” me these days, literally, and that I keep at bay shutting them quickly in the bottom of my heart.

But this morning emotion was quicker than rationality.

“Yeah right, it’s daylight savings time..” my husband said this morning, looking at the watch after waking up, a bit surprised because we slept until 10 am. That sentence, unexpected, dig up the pure emotion inside me, free of that mask of rationality that systematically wraps my every feeling these days.

For a moment, there was only pure joy, the one I used to feel knowing the sun would have stayed up until late. That feeling of freedom, those afternoons that smell of summer already, of cities travelled by scooter and with short sleeves. Those vivid colours, the feeling of being able to do whatever I wanted. That feeling was so sudden, but also as powerful as to explode in my heart.

This morning I noticed, truly and for the first time, how much in this situation, for survival instinct, I’m covering up my true feelings, hiding them under a veil of rationality. How I am living with the handbrake pulled, to avoid suffering.

But, you see, feelings cannot be chained up, hidden, covered, for too long.

Sooner or later they find the way to get out. Even with a trick. Suddenly. With a sentence apparently trivial and thrown there, just like that.

And they squeeze you tight, very tight, with no safety distance.