As I go for a quick workout at the rec center; just another evening; I notice this time it’s light outside. I can see around me as I pull into the lot. It wasn’t the cold, dark, street-lit route to the gym, dimly-lit parking lot surrounded by darkness, and head-down-brisk-walk-to-the-front-door that it was all winter. It’s like my eyes are slowly opening to the world around me, for the first time in a long time.

Hooray for Daylight Saving Time.

Tonight there are pretty pink and white blooms on planned suburban rows of toddler trees. Tonight my blinders are off and I see the big park in back of the rec center, that was always there, when I look a little to the right.

It’s where I used to play softball on my work team for years. Kade came with me, of course, as he was only eight years old when I started my eight-year career at Archstone. On a lucky-for-him night he played with other kids who came with their parents. But most of the time he played catch with Mom, and tossed a football or wrestled around with the guys I worked with: sweet big boys at heart. I don’t remember him complaining about coming along in my single mom years to softball, volleyball, or even book club, when he was little, anyway.

And if I look out even farther, I see another diamond, where he played baseball. I see him taking a huge swing, flashing “RIEFENBERG” across his back. I see his little white baseball pants and dusty black cleats. Big round helmet on a small body. Me hoping to hear the tink of metal bat connecting with ball, and when I did, yelling wildly.

Hooray for Daylight Saving Time?

This is what happens when I look a little to the right. When the blinders come off. Sometimes it’s nice to journey and arrive in the dark. To just get the task done, whether it’s a drive, a workout, an errand, or whatever. Quick and painless. But tonight I can’t stop my eyes from looking a little to the right. And it’s neither quick nor painless.

I not only see the fields from the parking lot with the teeniest of glances to the right, but tonight, from inside the gym as well. It’s still light out. With each short lap, through the floor to ceiling windows, I see the park in the pink light of the setting sun. When I look a little to the right.