I Wonder What I'd Do with Just One Hour a Day?

If I could stop time for one brief span of 60 minutes every day, what would I do with it? I’m not going to get into time-travel theory or anything. I’m simply talking about stopping the clock with no adverse effects to anyone … nobody on the planet but me will ever know it’s happened, nobody else is unfrozen, and I never get more than just that hour. How to spend it, those 3,600 seconds of time?

I’d take my hour at a different time each day, for starters. I am such a creature of habit, and I don’t like change, so each day of the week would be designated for a specific hour that I’d try to never vary. I believe it would go a little something like this:

MONDAY: An extra bit of shut-eye. Naturally. Did I really even need to spell that out? I have Sunday-night Insomnia (it’s a thing! B/c it happens to me!) almost every week, so easing that with a guaranteed extra hour before my alarm goes off at 5:35A will be just the thing to set my week off with a happy, snuggly bang.

TUESDAY: An hour mid-morning to step away from work duties and do something analog—write letters/notes! I used to be quite the pen pal before I was able to type faster than write; the legibility of my penmanship has suffered from constant keyboard use, which slows me down further. One of the most delicious pleasures a person can know is to open an envelope or a folded piece of paper and gobble up the musings of a good friend or a story told by a faraway family member. Another simultaneously soothing and exciting experience is to write a good letter with the sole intent of entertaining/fascinating/bearing your soul to your audience. And when the missive is unexpected, it’s all the more delightful. Since the world has stopped, my computer’s not going to send emails during that hour anyway.

WEDNESDAY: Reading before bed. I’m over a year behind on The New Yorker and Newsweek. Yikes. And then I want some novel recommendations from G Love and to read all the contemporary plays that will have been name-checked in my New Yorkers.

THURSDAY: I started to cheat on my own rules and split my hour into two 30-minute blocks, but that wouldn’t make me a good Wonder Woman, would it?! So Thursdays won’t always happen at the same time every week (I should practice being more flexible, right? Look at me grow! Yay me!)—I’ll alternate weeks, depending on the weather. My extra hour on Thursday will be for marveling at either sunrise or sunset. I live in a stunningly beautiful part of the country and I’ll admit that I take it for granted a great deal of the time. Having an hour all to myself to be aware of—if not out in—nature will surely help me keep a sense of awe about the mountains and valleys and river and pine trees and sunshine and (of course) snow that are a part of who I am now. I would be loath to trade my adopted hometown for very much of anything, but the act of just living makes anything seem mundane sometimes. I forget how majestic it can be to just sit and witness the opening and closing of the days. Thursdays will make sure I remember.

FRIDAY: Afternoon online window shopping. It will be the most quickly sucked non-real-time ever.

SATURDAY: A quick-clean of the house first thing in the morning. The Boy takes much, much longer to notice that it’s time to dust/vacuum/scrub than I do, so I think this is something that I can accomplish without his noticing when he’s unfrozen. I’ll even get up, do my thing, and sneak back into bed so that I can “wake up” to a clean, happy weekend. This choice of ways to spend my Saturday hour may have something to do with the fact that we spent the entire day yesterday cleaning the house (seriously … it was a 9 to 5-er) and I was giggling and jumping up and down all day today at work, waiting to rush home to revel in the spotlessness of it all.

SUNDAY: I was going to have this be my baking day, but I’m not an inspired chef, I’m a methodical one. Everything has to be done just as the recipe says or whatever I’m attempting will turn out an inedible gruel. Plus I make a mess. I don’t think I can get something made, eaten, and cleaned up after in an hour. And if I could, I’d likely need another hour somewhere else to exercise it off. Hmm. What else? Ooh, I know! I’ll practice my subpar parallel-parking skills with no worries about traffic or judgmental strangers. But I’ll do it very carefully and with piles of pillows representing the other cars at the curb so I won’t have any ‘splainin’ to do.

What do you think, fearless readers? How would you spend your extra seven hours?