I am endlessly fascinated with time zones; so fascinated, in fact, that I get very excited every time I travel to a new one. There's something special about specific times of day repeating themselves over and over around the world. Ani Difranco has a line in one of her songs "How I miss this time zone" which just rings so true for me. I do miss other time zones I have lived in, and always feel a sense of comfort when I am back in them.
Like the Pacific Standard Time Zone for example - that time zone just encompasses everything I love about the west coast (the ocean, the vibe, the clear, fresh air, the landscape) and will forever have a special place in my heart. I was born and grew up in Eastern Standard, and I really do love it. However, as a teenager when I used to dream about moving out to the west coast I always thought about how when it was midnight in Toronto, it was only 9 pm in Vancouver or San Francisco. While my night was coming to an end, someone just like me's night - on the other side of the continent - would be starting.
Often I love both a place and its time zone, or a time zone and its places, and once that relationship starts I get really attached. When I first moved back to Toronto from Berkeley in July 2006 and then from Paris the following summer, it took me over a week both times to finally change the clock on my laptop to Toronto time. Every time I turned on my computer and saw the time, I felt bittersweet. Even though I was back in Toronto, my computer still hadn't said goodbye. Changing the time on my laptop seemed so final, like I had really and truly left Berkeley or Paris behind; and since in both cases I was either really sad (Berkeley) or in denial (Paris) to have/that I was gone, it was quite an important moment when I finally adjusted the time three hours forward or six hours back.
When I visited China in the summer of 2008, I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was 12 hours ahead of Toronto. While I was eating dinner around 8 pm, someone back home was eating breakfast. While I was sleeping peacefully at 3 am, someone was still working away. It gave a whole new meaning to the notion of Asia being on the other side of the world.
It is both interesting (lots of people to visit, cool stories and experiences to hear about) and at times hard (I miss all my far-flung friends so much!) to have people I care about living all over the world, in many different time zones. Sometimes it gets quite complicated too as I'm always trying to keep track of what time it in places across oceans and on the other sides of continents. But ultimately, it is so cool. I love how as I finish this post around 2 pm on a Thursday in Toronto, someone in Los Angeles is just starting to think about lunch, while someone in Paris is having a pre-dinner kir, and someone else in Beijing is fast asleep, and someone in Auckland is eating breakfast on Friday morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment