Hooray! The clocks have turned back an hour giving us another precious hour to enjoy. As the weather turns colder, we need all the hours of daylight we can get. Climate change has given New England a double edge sword: an extended mild Fall season accompanied by destruction of the planet, so let’s try to enjoy the unseasonable weather while we can. Everyone knows winter is coming so let’s not fool ourselves.
There are so many things I want to do with the precious additional hour of time I have been granted. I could extend my daily walks (okay, 2-or-3-times-a-week-walks) for an additional hour. I could make my way further around Spot Pond and marvel at the foliage. I could walk to Stoneham Square and window shop for the afternoon before stopping in at the library or my favorite coffee shop.
I could sift through my overflowing art bins and find my watercolor painting supplies. I could spend an hour every night creating something on the blank canvases I bought at Michael’s two years ago. I could move them from the back of the closet and make them a priority. This time of year is very inspirational and my canvases won’t be blank for very long. Acrylics, watercolors, mixed media photo collages…the possibilities are endless.
I could even clean out the closet while I’m organizing my art supplies. I could take the five bulky bags of old clothing to the Salvation Army drop-off center in Saugus. I could go through all my unused winter coats and donate them to a local coat drive. Why stop there? With my extra time I could clean out the kitchen junk-drawer (again). Now that I think of it, there are numerous drawers in this house that need cleaning out (or just emptied out all together). Which leads me to my backyard shed…and my basement…I’m going to need much more than an hour for those projects.
I could spend my newfound time contacting friends who took a back-seat during the pandemic years. I could reach out. Text. Email. Send a card. I can’t use “no time” as an excuse anymore. I have that precious newly minted extra hour burning a hole in my pocket just begging to be used.
With an extra hour in the afternoon, I could focus on sending out some of my cartoons to various publishers. Email has made that chore a lot easier than the old days of hard-copies and self-addressed-stamped-envelopes (or S.A.S.E.’s as we say in the business). The more submissions I circulate, the more chance I have of reaching new markets. Success is all about perseverance.
An extra hour for a writer is a dream come true. Writing takes time, and any extra time is welcomed when you are staring at a blank white screen waiting for the words to come. Instead of writing one page a night, if I had an extra hour I could write two pages a night. In three months I’d have my novel, or my Hallmark Channel Christmas movie script (not a joke). At the very least I’d have my newspaper column finished before the day it’s due to the editor.
After all that speculating on what I could be doing, I’m exhausted mentally, physically and spiritually. Look at the time. It’s getting late. I’m getting tired (well, it is an hour later than it says on the clock if this was last week). I’ve decided to make good use of my time by clicking on the Disney-Plus app and searching for the latest episode of Dancing With The Stars. Watching Tyra and Alfonso as the disco ball spins feels very comforting. And I’ve got an extra hour to kill.
Thoughts & Afterthoughts 