Spring’s New Grooves

My multi-month commitment to Christmas has come to an end. I have a couple of chapters left of Nigel Slater’s Christmas Chronicles; the gilded pine cones are stored away with the snowflake fairy lights, and the cut-price Art Deco baubles I snapped up in January. But I’ve decided that non-denominational fairy lights are legitimate to keep up in one’s hallway. Indeed, they pre-empt summer evenings, of which the turning earth whispers as the daffodils coat grassy banks in wave upon wave of sunshine, and the goldfinches rasp in the bare trees, and the sea buckthorn sprouts flowers the colour of burnt marmalade. Spring is here with its forsythia and hellebores, the trees submerged in magnolia blossom so thick they look by night as though laden with snow.

Here comes the disruption of winter routine. My phone and earbuds move between coat and jacket, jacket and running hoodie; my hands begin to recover from the gnaw of winter dog walks, only to chap once more in an unexpected cold snap, caught out by the wrong gloves. Yet suddenly, as students face down impending exams, or the end of essays, it is warm enough to take a packed lunch to the Meadows at lunchtime and sit, world rumbling ominously through our screens, and wonder what comes next – and, idly, whether March in Edinburgh is too early for sunburn.

The rhythms and habits of how we are in the world, how we adapted for the winter outside and indoors, are upending beneath our noses. I look around at home and see the dust of winter, drifts of it, or perhaps that is simply the fur that Hope has obligingly begun to shed. Either way, it means cleaning, open windows, the removal of winter foliage, dusting the pots into which I will replant, rinsing clothes from the must of cupboards. I gain a re-triangulation of the route between shops/library/cafe/walk, now that the dog will not drip mud for weeks on end, and I can contemplate running without being blown off the road; and – most extraordinary of all – a whole couple of hours after work in which the park or the beach beckon to both Hope and I without tantrums (her, to go; me, not to).

It’s so lovely, spring. And yet. What if you had reconciled yourself to winter, such that you were in a good groove, with your blankets and early bedtimes, the chill, wind or fog a cast-iron excuse for saying no; sociable evening phone calls while pottering at home under low light in your red joggers (still doing sterling work, several years on); stews and casseroles, homely fare, portioned out in the freezer; the best, warmest jumper, that you could throw on over anything else knowing what was underneath need never see the light of day?

What about the problems you had shelved until spring, the big items that needed buying, the hard choices that needed making: the refrigerator coming of age just as you must be booking summer holidays, the relationship quietly going dull, the career move you stuffed behind the figurative sofa to chew the walls until you should find the courage to set it in motion, the admission that you cannot, never will, write your novel between 4.30am and 7am like Virginia Evans wrote The Correspondent and also her previous seven books?

For spring is a time for truth, the burgeoning of new things. But births and beginnings are equal parts delight and test. First steps may be shaky, rose-tinted or hesitant, a conversation between what is and what might be in which neither party declares themselves with clarity. When making change, you must trust your gut, keep a cool head, and be prepared to let go. It all requires energy, right when the time shift steals an hour of sleep. Spring requires new grooves, and we do not slip into them without bravery: a certain oomph is needed, a willingness to poke our heads outside the den, beady-eyed for what might occur around us, draw forth our life.

Yet I also distrust the declarative ‘new leaf’, ‘new start’, which demands perfection and a shedding of the past that may be too stark for coherence of heart and mind. Perhaps spring is more a matter of invitation, a certain self-hospitality, feeding new ideas well with good company and adequate rest. Perhaps we find our way into spring’s new grooves when we remember that missteps are part of the path, that openings are often unexpected, that words are best paired with deeds, and that – always, in Edinburgh – you will need a scarf.

Here’s to spring, and all that it may bring.

Warm wishes,

Kitty