When the Clocks Change: How Daylight Saving Time Affects Our Transatlantic Friendship

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing.

— Gloria Naylor

Fran and I live three thousand miles and five time zones apart. For most of the year I’m five hours ahead of Fran, so that when it’s nine o’clock in the morning for Fran it’s two o’clock in the afternoon for me. This works well and we’ve built the pulse of our connection, our friendship, around this time difference. Our scheduling is thrown out twice a year, in spring and autumn, because our respective countries switch to daylight saving time on different days.

As I write this, we’re about to enter just such a situation. Clocks in the US advance one hour tonight, Saturday March 8. The UK won’t fall in line until the end of the month. For three weeks, we’ll be four hours apart instead of the usual five. Instead of calling each day at 7 am, 2 pm, and 6 pm (in Fran’s time) we’ll meet at 8 am, 3 pm, and 7 pm, assuming those times are convenient for her — and we know in advance they won’t always be. I could temporarily adjust my schedule but that’s not always workable either. It’s okay. We’ve done this twice a year since we met in 2011. But it’s something we need to take into account, an inconvenience that can’t be ignored or wished away.

I used to get so frustrated when things like this got in the way of us connecting. I’ve learned to let go of the need for things to always go the way I want them to or think they should. (That word, should!) Clock changes serve as an opportunity to practice acceptance. They are an example of the Serenity Prayer’s call “to accept the things I cannot change.”

I’ll endeavour to approach these coming weeks in that spirit. The different frequency and timing of our calls offers a chance to appreciate the ease with which our lives interlace for most of the year, and the value we each place on our friendship.

That’s something worth celebrating, whatever time it is.

 

Photo by Jon Tyson at Unsplash.