Day 10: What happened to April 11th?

“Fall back, spring forward.”

That’s the line that helps you remember what to do with your clocks on Daylight Savings. Luckily most of our internet-connected devices do it automatically, you just have to remember to change the others (stove, microwave, car, alarm clock, analog watch, am I missing any?).

The clocks changed this morning at 2 AM, jumping to 3, with all 60 minutes in between — gone. Which has me wondering this afternoon, as I can’t quite figure out what time it is, what happened to that hour?

It reminded me of Ismo Leikola’s great bit about time differences around the world. How weird it is when we fly from one time zone to another, and how it really hit him when he went from America to New Zealand one time, flying out on April 10th and landing on the 12th.

“Huh? Excuse me but, what happened to the 11th? I didn’t get to live that one. I don’t think I have lived that day yet, so…” he says, stumbling through his words in this hilarious delivery.

*

Today I was looking at pictures of my nephew when he was a baby. Big eyes, funny faces. Staring up at me in wonder. Short videos of me giving him big smooches on the cheeks and him giggling in that adorable way that babies do. I have so many pictures and videos of him from his first couple years of life, when I was living just a block away from my sister, and saw them almost every week.

Now the photos and videos I see of him are the ones my sister posts online or sends our family group chat. Like the one she sent this week of him practicing his new “party trick” of burping, cracking himself up in the way that 6-year-olds do.

How did he get from that small nugget who needed to be held, who was strengthening his neck muscles every time he leaned his head back to get a better look at you, to this long and muscular string bean of a kid who chews bubble gum and pulled out wiggly his front tooth and chases girls in the playground?

Every time I visit home now, I just stare at him in wonder: How much he’s grown. How smart he is. How affectionate he is with his little sister.

I don’t want to fall back or spring forward, lose a day, gain a day.

I just want to listen to those third graders and be more present: be here, now. And make an effort to stay more connected, so that the “lost hours” aren’t so apparent.