When I was a kid, I thought Daylight Savings was magic, that there was a guy with a big clock someplace and he would pull a lever and re-set the time. I'm proud to say that my magical thinking is much more refined than when I was a kid, but it still seems interesting that time can sort of be manipulated (I just showed this to Mr. Strega, hoping he would discourse on "the arrow of time," but he told me what I said was somewhat true. He also told me it is possible to freeze light, to bend time into space and vice-versa, and that transmitting information outside of a 'light cone, whatever that is, also manipulates time). "Can we put light into ice trays and make light cubes?" I ask him.
Now the guy has pulled the Daylight Savings lever earlier in the year than he usually does, and I will no longer have to walk to my evening dance and yoga classes in the dark. It means my summer dance venues in my heavy Dancers of the Crescent Moon costume will be massively hot in ways I don't plan. It means my garden will, in just a few weeks, begin to break into color, hold light in the cup of each blossom.
You know it's summer in my town when the Pink Umbrella Man changes his hat of rose-colored fake fur for a straw one and leaves off his fuzzy magenta leggings on his daily journey of slowness and brightness, a pink Shiva, his walk the dance that keeps the heart of Santa Cruz thrumming. You know it's summer when the White Raven stays open 'til seven, the locals discoursing on their past lives as medieval emperors and warrior princesses, opining about corporate evil and the subtle effects of electromagnetic radiation, pausing to gaze long and thoughtfully at the screens of their laptops until the barista stacks chairs around them and swishes a broom under their feet, signaling the end of another day.
Every year, I say I'm taking a break from the garden, but in truth, I'm probably going to end up like Stanley Kunitz, gardening until I am 101, my hair in a long white braid down my back. Next to me is a bag of seed packets; today, a little late, the sweet peas go in. I love what sweet peas do--make magical scent so that when people step out into my garden, they are enveloped in a fragrant wave...so much so that I inadvertently bought seven packets of these climbers: rose pink Mammoth Choice, Cupid, Pastel Sunset, Watermelon, Jet Set, Old Spice Blanche Ferry, Blue Celeste. I'm the person who dreams over seed packets when winter freezes the landscape into harsh neutrals.
So, instead of grumping about the early time change, I will go out today and clean off winter's detritus from the back deck--fallen branches, piles of cuttings from the freeze, geraniums and succulents not yet showing any leaves. In the garden, the writer in me dreams and plans, the man I love beyond measure, the true love I found at 42, kneels down to pull weeds next to the place where the ancient wild lilac fell during a hard rain. It put out silvery blooms for years, a little less each season, until one morning he told me it split and fell during the night. Cut and stacked now for next years' kindling, and I plan another lilac in its place. I can't stop the arrow of time as it pierces our lives, taking us each day towards an inevitable and final winter: but I can decorate the journey, gathering life into my hands like soil and unplanted seeds, all their potential ready to be wakened.
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