When the Clocks Fall Back, Mexican Mothers Did These 8 Things (They Still Work Today)

#ClocksFallBack #DaylightSavings #TheOldMexicanWay 📖 My mother's November is written down in The Old Mexican Way: the mending basket on page 228, the winter clothes checked before they hang on page 220, the carbon monoxide alarm on page 262, and the weeks she counted back from November first for the marigolds on page 506: https://oldmexicanway.com The hour you get back on Sunday is not a gift. It is a bill, and you pay it every evening at half past five until February. My mother never got that bill, and not because she was cheerful. The day the clock changed was a working day in her house, with a list, and by Sunday night the house was ready for the dark. Here is the list, in the order she did it, and the honest word on what it fixes and what it does not. The eight things: 1️⃣ Sunday morning the clock goes back and the house gets checked. Smoke alarm button, and the carbon monoxide alarm, which is a different machine for a different death (p262). Both wear out as whole units at about ten years. Turn yours over and find the date. Flashlight, candles, matches, one drawer. 2️⃣ The coffee goes to the door. Ten minutes of morning light on the step sets the clock inside your body. The low mood that comes with the dark is real; light helps the light kind, and the heavy kind belongs to your doctor. 3️⃣ The closets flip the same day. Every winter piece checked as it comes down: zipper, hem, button (p220). The beds layer up and the thermostat goes down (p228). 4️⃣ The lamp comes to the table. One warm lamp where the family is, the rest of the house dark. A candle only on a table with a person at it. 5️⃣ El mandado before three. The weeks after the fall change are the most dangerous of the year for people on foot at the evening rush. Errands by three for two weeks, white scarf, cross where drivers expect you. Behind the wheel: slower at dusk, lights on early. 6️⃣ Supper with the last of the light, and the basket after. Mending season opens in November (p228). The long evening gets a job for the hands. 7️⃣ The body keeps its own clock. Bedtime stays at the new hour on the wall from night one; the extra hour goes to sleep, not the screen. Morning light plus an early night moves the body's clock in under a week. 8️⃣ The altar goes up the same week. Custom, said so. My mother counted the weeks back from the first of November on her fingers for the cempasúchil (p506). The first week of the dark, the house was full of people and candles, and nobody noticed the dark. The honest word: none of this makes the dark shorter. It takes the surprise out of it. CHAPTERS 0:00 The hour you get back is a bill 1:43 1. The clock goes back and the house gets checked 3:15 My mother's book 3:41 2. The coffee goes to the door 5:19 3. The closets flip the same day 6:29 4. The lamp comes to the table 7:45 5. El mandado before three 9:18 6. Supper with the light, the basket after 10:56 7. The body keeps its own clock 12:11 8. The altar goes up 13:25 The honest word 14:17 Who profits from the dark 14:51 Do one tonight My name is Bertha. This channel is the old ways, from the women in my family to you. I was widowed at 49 after thirty-one years and I raised six children in my mother's house in Guadalajara, where the clocks changed too for most of her last years. Tell me how your own mother met the early dark, and tell me your county too. I read every one. Not medical advice. If the low mood with the dark is heavy or lasts, talk to your doctor. Replace any smoke or carbon monoxide alarm older than ten years. #FallBack #MexicanMom #OldWays