Pink and white blossoms provide modesty for once naked trees. Their fallen petals serve as springtime snow, decorating the ground. It is that time of year again when roses spring to life and rays of sun extend their grace, no longer timid by winter’s presence. Throughout the last few years, spring has proved itself to be my favourite season. As a child I loathed it, to me it was winter extended, filled with even more rain. I didn’t care for daffodils, and I wanted summer to hurry along so that days were outstretched, schools end was closer, and my birthday was nearer.
In all honesty, I didn’t come to value spring until 2020. Prior to that, I took it for granted. I was not susceptible to the beauty of blossoms on trees, the scent of fresh lavender or bold blue skies. I saw spring as an essential stop over to reach the ultimate destination, summer. The heat rarely permeated, and the coldness of the evening crept up on you like a thief in the night. With summer you knew what you were getting, spring however is shrouded with unpredictability.
When all other privileges were stripped away and anxiety of the unknown occupied everyone’s thoughts, simple pleasures were a highlight. When your garden was the only place you could occupy outside, spring sunshine took on a new meaning. I still think lockdown spring provided me with my best spring tan to date. My skin didn’t normally reach the brown hues I had in April 2020 until at least June in any other year. Afternoons were spent sprinting in intervals up and down my cul-de-sac after finding an old stopwatch from my more athletic childhood. I would cycle up and down in the sunlight with my headphones blasting music from Sister Sledge, Patricia Rushen, and The Jones Girls. It is my firm belief that eighties soul heightens the mood-enhancing effects of sunshine.
I would sunbathe in my garden during extra hot spring days of the early pandemic. So as not to waste the sun (the biggest sin in my eyes), essay and exam preparation would commence during the evening. I can be inside when the sun sets. I remember writing the final essay for my Modern Christianity module on Easter Sunday as The Ten Commandments (1956), a childhood fixture of mine, bellowed in the background, my mum running back and forth from the front room to the kitchen to keep an eye on Easter dinner.
Suddenly spring was no longer a means to an end, instead it brought with it the gift of flourishing nature when everything around us at the time spoke to the opposite. The threat of death loomed and yet here was spring, arriving as it always does, none the wiser. The seasons kept on. It was only when everything was stripped back that I found joy in buds unravelling, in unexpected springtime warmth, in the seasons blatant fecundity.
I’d say that the pandemic brought me the gift of loving nature. Not that I despised the outside and its accompanying green shrubbery prior to it. Rather, it allowed me to foster a greater appreciation for it. Strolls in my local park were somehow revolutionised by the very things that are in it each and every year.
A Friday afternoon well spent
In spring’s little hand is an offering of possibilities. A week into London’s lasting sunny spell and warm weather I feel optimistic and bright. I have spent three days outstretched on grass and tapestry blankets in various parks. I’ve dipped strawberries into melted chocolate bars and bought far too many grab bags of crisps. Filled with chilli olives, I’ve laid on my belly nestled beneath the sun talking for hours. My legs have dangled from uncharacteristically high benches in a beer garden, and I spent an extortionate amount on a bag of donuts that closer resembled onion rings than supposed sugary delights.
Like summer, spring is a season in which you can go out with no objective and that’s reason enough to coax your friends out of their homes and rally them together. Sunlight allows for meandering. Yes, it is possible to do this in winter, but it is much harder to convince one of a day promenading when the temperature never reaches above single digits. It requires more armour (gloves, scarves, the works), more conscious effort, more money. Though it is warmer in summer and so arguably better to do nothing, spring offers a glimmer into hotter days to come, that is why it charms. With a sunny, spring day, you know there is more days like this to come, and you are reminded of how starved you were of it.
Earlier in March, when spring was still too shy to show its cards, I decided a day of walking was what I needed. I got the train to Victoria and walked to Hyde Park, my audiobook (Piglet by Lottie Hazell) offering its companionship, filling my ears. I bought my favourite M&S pasta (I mostly appreciate that they come in a container in the shape of conchiglie), a chocolate yumnut, water, and was on my way. It was slightly overcast and misty. I sat down by the lake as regal white swans took a break from the water, crowded by tourists. Halfway through my pasta I realised it was far to cold for idle sitting down. To stay warm was to keep moving, and my fingers grew stiff around the wooden fork. There was no time for savouring each bite.
As I made my way through the park, I encountered a gated garden. Bold, overarching trees closed in on the long path, a sight I can never resist. As I walked through, I slowed down my stride to appreciate bashful flowers who were not yet ready to debut themselves. I admired itsy birds with bulbous chests full of song. A man sitting on a park bench sat legs wide nursing a large cigar, ‘you don’t see this in Peckham Rye’ I thought.
I got through a chunk of my audiobook, pulling faces as it reached climax. I sat down on the other side of the park and journalled, though as the evening slowly approached my fingers were even stiffer and each word took a minute to jot down. A woman’s dog jumped into the pond, and she frantically tried to pull him up, instead only retrieving his collar. She got him out and he stood, a big, drenched ball of joy with his tongue out, not quite sure of his wrong doings as she bellowed his name.
Walking back to the closest bus stop home, I pass weeping willows that look especially weary. Couples sit on stumpy logs and a pair of friends battle with a billowing blanket that blows in the wind instead of setting to the grass. I treat myself to an iced white choc matcha from Blank Street despite the temperature (spring state of mind) and decide to riffle through the accessories section of Primark to round off the evening.
I buy a pair of glasses, a large scrunchie and two sets of earrings. The sunglasses remind me of what is to come, an emblem of the season. I buy them in eager anticipation of bright, bustling spring. “I’ll need these”, I say to myself, soon my favourite season will reveal itself.
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