Winter's Shortening Days During a Pandemic

Last night while on my run I heard the bang of the cannon on Old Ironsides in Charlestown’s Navy Yard. It’s a nightly occurrence marking sundown. At certain parts of the year, it’s a reminder that the night’s are long and warm and wonderful as we eat tacos, drink beer, or just wander freely through our neighborhood. Other night’s it’s a hammer to the head in the midst of a cold, dark, endless winter. The cannon had barely finished it’s echo when I checked my watch to check the time.

It was 6:01pm.

“Beware the Ides of October” is the phrase, right? October 15th is the last night that the sun will set after 6:00pm in Boston until March 14 (aided by daylight saving time because March 13 sunset is 5:49 and March 14 is 6:50).

Just to put March 13 into perspective, that date in 2021 will mark the one year anniversary of Marty Walsh closing Boston schools due to CoVID. March 11 is when the NBA shutdown and when Trump got on TV and said he was closing our borders to Europe.

Time has held a lot of meaning to us since March 2020 while simultaneously losing so much meaning. We’ve lived two whole seasons with CoVID. It’s like a bad, smelly, untidy roommate that we can’t force to move out. We’re into our third season. Spring and summer in the northeast are easy months. Warming weather and opportunities to be outside allowed us to see friends and family. The great outdoors gave us some semblance of normalcy and escape. We could eat outside. Have a beer on a deck. Grill. Go for a long, comfortable walk.

Time, now, feels like it’s running out on us again. The days are getting colder, I woke up in complete darkness on Thursday to play golf in hand-numbing cold (weep for me…). The night’s are creeping into the day. Sitting at my “desk” (read: dining room table) at 4:00pm as the sun dips below the buildings twists my soul. Preparing dinner in twilight and eating in darkness eats away at any positive vibes.

It feels like just yesterday that our dining room table had puzzle pieces strewn about as Tiff looked for a distraction from the craziness of last spring (Ravensburger Puzzles ran out of puzzles!). That was all happening as the days grew longer and the light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t a vaccine or a cure, it was just summertime and some freedom.

Now it feels like the tunnel is shrinking again, the light dimming earlier and earlier each and every day. We panicked and bought a Peloton, piling together our two autumn birthdays and Christmas into one gift for the condo, and for our sanity (a miracle for two libras to make such a decision…).

All I can do right now is continue to squeeze whatever juice I can out of the next 4-6 weeks. Run, golf, see friends, grill on our deck, drink a beer outside, dine outside at a favorite restaurant. Unlike other years, it feels like the clock is ticking even louder, the cannon in the Navy Yard echoes longer, and I hope that what they say is true about getting older, that things tend to move just a tad quicker. I’d like that this winter (and then I’d like time to return to it’s normally scheduled procession).

Until then, I’ll be pounding the pavement, hitting the fairways, eating sidewalk dinners, and maybe we’ll stick a few beers in a cooler and watch the sunset at The Bunker Hill Monument.