Time Zones

I grew up in southwestern Ohio. It’s in the western end of the Eastern Standard Time zone, along with most of Indiana. On early summer nights, it would stay light out quite late and we’d be out in the back yard in our pajamas, catching fireflies before bedtime. I remember thinking how wonderful it was to be running around in the soft evening air, looking for the intermittent flashes of light in the darkest corners of the lawn.

Now I live on the north shore of Boston, which lies at the eastern end of the time zone. And although I have lived in this area for over 25 years, the morning light still surprises me. On these early summer days, it starts to get light over the marsh at around 4:30AM. The cats begin to stir around 5:30; the birds are already fussing and twittering. The cats want their breakfast. I fend them off as long as I can, but invariably I end up getting up before I really want to; their persistence defeats my desire to catch another hour of delicious morning sleep.

. . .

Many summers ago I went back to Dayton for the wedding of one of my childhood friends. The evening reception was held outdoors on their family farm, with a big tent with tables and a dance floor set up next to the hay fields.

It was a beautiful evening. The music was sweet, the air was as soft as I remembered it, and there were thousands of fireflies over the fields, signaling to each other as darkness slowly fell.