Balance of the Beams

March 20, 2025

Today is one of two days in the year where we have a perfect balance of light—equal parts day and night. I was out in the backyard absorbing it all at twilight recently, appreciating how much more energy I have when it's still light at 7:30 pm, when I suddenly flashed back several decades to a time when I didn't think it was so great. When I was 5 years old, 7:30 was my official bedtime. Back then, Daylight Savings Time didn’t start until a month later than it does now, which meant that one night in April, as if a giant hand had flipped a cruel switch, I'd be sent to bed during the Golden Hour instead of after dark. I would sit there on my bed seething, staring out the window at the kids next door running and laughing in their yard, free as birds.

The injustice, to my 5-year-old self, wasn’t just the early bedtime; it was that my "Why?" went unanswered. Looking back, I think it's likely my parents were just seeking a little quiet for themselves after a day of dealing with Preschooler Debbie (fair enough, who wouldn't). Walking me through their early-bedtime reasoning would have been inconvenient, but without an explanation, I was reduced to protesting and pouting.

Fast-forward to now: I'm still that same kid (aren't we all?), and I'm still a person who needs to know why. In case, for example, you're wondering why today the entire world has an equal amount of light and dark, it's because on the spring and fall equinoxes, Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the Sun, which means the sunlight is evenly distributed today.

I have no real quarrel with the laws of physics—in one sense, it would be great if we could un-tilt the Earth to avoid the long dark winter, but then of course we'd miss the seasons. Pointless rules created by people, though, still make me bristle. As a parent, I've tried to avoid them as much as possible, in part to honor the spirit of my 5-year-old self, but also because I want life to make sense. Every family needs principles and rules to function, so early in my parenting journey, I made a rule for myself: I should be prepared to hold any family rule up the light. If it's crisp and clean, it gets to stay, if not, it should be guided to a peaceful sunset.

—Deb