Blooming Anyway
It has been the longest winter of my life. The beautiful, sharp, energetic frosty mornings of last year have thawed through February and March, leaving us with a dull, thick grey cloud that muffles everything. The monotonous cold has made me something of a grumpy recluse. It’s too cold. Every venture outside my front door feels like an arctic expedition. I layer up the thermals and tighten the gloves and scarf so no icy air can sneak in. When I return home, the relief is enough to fuel me for a few hours before I’m filling up the hot water bottle and climbing back into bed. You’ll find me there for the rest of the day.
At the beginning of the season, I set out to fall in love with winter. I was excited to embrace the gentleness required to survive the shorter days, and intended to find beauty in every hibernating creature in the plant, animal and human world. I wanted this winter to teach me something.
It’s March now, and the total desperation for warm spring days increases with every day that passes. It seems the plan failed. I like winter even less than I did at the beginning, and I’ve never wanted to leave anything behind as much as I do this never-ending gloom. Instead, I’ve been distracting myself with thoughts of my future. I’ve been exploring careers, window shopping for jobs, and thinking hard about who I am, what I care about, and what I want to do with it all. There have been ideas and hopes bubbling under the surface for a long time that have been pushed deep down for fear of failing, not being accepted, or not being good enough. At the very least, winter has given me space to look back at these ideas and wonder when might be the right time to be brave.
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Through all of this, I’ve been on a treasure hunt. In late January, the first snow drops appeared, soon followed by croci, and now in March, the daffodils in full force. Whenever I am forced to leave the comfort of my duvet, my eyes are keenly searching for flashes of yellow and purple. Every spring flower I pass sends a gentle jolt of joy through my body. Each is a little whisper of a new season. These are the flowers that are peeping their heads above the dirt in hopeful assertion of spring. Croci have begun to carpet the sides of roads, making for regal journeys to and from the supermarket. Last week I visited St. James’s park, and struck gold. The daffodils had reared their heads unknowing that their existence would become something of a performance. Each one pushed through mud entirely alone, only to find themselves in a sea of yellow that had such forceful presence, it couldn’t be passed by. A sheer spectacle.
On the way home, I decided not to pull out my book at Vauxhall station. Instead I made a mental note to stare out the window the whole way home, seeing everything my eye could take in as the 100 miles per hour train sped past an abundance of remarkable things left unseen by most Saturday travelers. I was rewarded with a young fox perched in the overgrowth, and then a flash of bright yellow, as three determined daffodils stood amongst discarded plastic bottles and scrapped metal. I briefly felt the magic that it was to observe them, instead of scrolling through the infinity of videos on instagram, checking my emails or “reading” the metro (doing the crossword and sending pictures of the horoscope to my partner because it says today is a good day to clean the house). It felt personal, selfishly. As though they were there for me. But the reality is, of course, that they aren’t. They are there for themselves. It is their right to be exactly where they are. To exist without fanfare or applause, even if they find that the ground they are rooted in is not dressed for their welcome.
It turns out that it’s in my chase for spring that I’ve been learning something valuable and pertinent the whole time. I get to be here, even if the sun is hidden behind clouds, and temperatures above ten degrees are still gathering their courage 1081 miles south of here. In a way, the last few years have felt similar to this long and dragging winter. My world has been small, and my ambitions have been quiet, often silent. I have been perpetually withholding. Have I been waiting for a sign? Have I been expecting to be told when it’s my turn? Spring flowers are not in the business of asking permission. The flowers have been patient. They’ve done the work, built up their energy whilst safely underground. And then they bloomed, when they were ready.
There’s a spring happening in me. I don’t need to wait anymore.
