The Morning: Lightening up

Daylight saving time begins tomorrow. It's time for us to grow lighter, too.

View in browser|nytimes.com March 8, 2025 By Melissa Kirsch Good morning. Daylight saving time begins tomorrow, and the days are getting lighter and more expansive. If we want to, we can, too. María Jesús Contreras Lightening up Daylight is adding up, about three minutes more each day as March progresses, give or take. Tomorrow, we bank a full hour at once: Change your clocks, change your smoke detector batteries, start planning menus around tender lettuces. Spring hasn't arrived yet, but her plane's definitely left the ground. I call this time of year The Great Thaw, or sometimes The Great Unclenching. Despite winter's cozy associations with holiday gathering, with mugs of cocoa enjoyed before the blazing hearth, it's always felt to me like a time of contraction, of hoarding. We button and zip ourselves up into ourselves and move quickly past one another. We sleep more and default to indoors. The days are always ending again. When the light returns, something unclenches in me, and I like to imagine that it does in all of us, although I know better than to impute my own longing for the warmer months to the bewildering characters who prefer the cold. "Daylight Saving Time Begins." That entry on the calendar always reads like a triumphant return, a welcome back. We tried this "standard time" thing all winter, tried being measured and responsible with how we spent our time, and now, exhale, finally, that's over. Now, we will loosen up. Now we will stop being so withholding and rigid with our time, with our presence, with our imaginations. Now a perfectly good Saturday plan is just to meet up outside and see what develops. The season of scarcity is coming to a close and now we will spend ourselves with abandon. Whether or not you feel a sort of inner unleashing happening this time of year, opening up is a seductive prospect, isn't it? If there's a tension between the seasons — fall and winter's contraction vs. spring and summer's expansion — then there's a similar tension in us. Being timid vs. living out loud. Rushing in from the cold vs. lingering. Playing it safe vs. risking it. Keeping ourselves small and contained vs. letting loose our full splendor. Sometimes we need inducements to be our most expansive selves, an invitation to open up. Let tomorrow's onset of longer, brighter days serve as that invitation. Why not? We change the clocks by an hour, making this deliberate shift from dark to light in our external worlds. How can we do this internally as well? How will we meet this unofficial beginning of the lighter, looser half of the year? How will we thaw out, unclench, let go? THE LATEST NEWS The Trump Administration Elon Musk leaves the White House on Tuesday. Pete Marovich for The New York Times Members of President Trump's cabinet clashed with Elon Musk in a contentious meeting on Thursday. 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Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Correction: Yesterday's newsletter said that more 2024 voters picked President Trump than didn't. Trump won more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris, but there were more overall voters for Harris and third-party candidates. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. 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