We Can Change Time

Summer fainted on Los Angeles the morning after the time change. Somewhere in that lost hour before dawn, the shadowy seasons of this desert town politely traded places, and winter waltzed away.

I wasn't shocked that Sunday brought record high temperatures- nothing in moderation, this place. Sick and sore as I was, I insisted on walking to the diner for brunch, as it looked like a gorgeous day from inside the windows. I was fooled, and I sweat out half my fever on the way back. I saw all the shade in Echo Park get small with children and church goers... watched the lake go glassy in my gaze. I slept off most the day.

And finally the evening came, an hour late, an hour brighter. I rolled down my windows in my car and let the dusk in. With it came the one real magic of Los Angeles: the smell of flowers in the air. In the sprawling neighborhoods of Los Angeles, there are as many rose bushes as palm trees. The scent has become ingrained in me, a thing of memory that will bring me back here after I've gone, like the smell of cut grass to my childhood home. It is pervasive, overpowering exhaust, taco stands, and donut shops in all directions. I breathed in the city's deep perfume, through stuffy sinuses, and summer flooded me...

No one in the city slept right that Sunday night. Sheets were tangled, pillows abused, and the time many alarm clocks was checked repeatedly in the wee morning hours when it should have been light but wasn't. We jarred the faults in time and this was the recovery. Amid the sudden heat, there was a degree of bewilderment on the faces of each worker in Monday's morning traffic.

Occasional morning frost is now occasional morning fog. The weather forecasters say "cooling off to mid-80s" and other ridiculous phrases. Instead of resolute nighttime, I drive home from work in fading sunlight, windows down, roses rushing by me on both sides.