A Year is Made in Springtime

Reflecting on my favourite season

When I was younger, I honestly didn’t regard the seasons much past winter cold, spring pretty, summer hot, autumn wet. But in the last couple of years, I’ve started to pay particular attention to the transition from winter to spring. Some of that is probably because the first trimester of the year partially functions as a countdown to my birthday, which falls about a week before the spring equinox. Ah, that event is two weeks before my birthday! How exciting, how terrible. The title of this reflection comes from an album review I cut from my 2023 farewell post for the sake of being succinct¹. I feel like a year is made in springtime. I’ve been thinking about this lately, as you do when your brain randomly spits out a full-formed phrase for you to pick apart.

I think I was trying to say that the year gains speed and gets its meaning from March onwards. January and February almost don’t feel real because no one ever seems all that prepared for them. Why would we be? The brief holiday pause before one year ends and another starts is woefully insufficient. They’ll call me a fantasist but I think the first few weeks of the year should be akin to hibernation. No one works, we make hulking cauldrons of soup, and hold each other close while we wait for winter to thaw and for spring to arrive. I used to wonder why some people hate winter, why anyone would bother hating something immutable and imperative, but then I realised that people who start work in the early morning greet the world in the dark, spend the day under artificial light, and emerge later on in the same darkness. This is not a way to live. Capitalism forces us to live against our most basic needs and desires. When nature pauses, we should pause too.

It isn’t a surprise when spring commences and the atmosphere is almost immediately lighter and brighter in response. Everyday life is largely the same but the world is technicolour again and everything comes alive, people and nature alike. There is pollen to contend with but there is a peace that surrounds too. The kind of peace that grants you permission to forget how you spent your winter months. A peace that’s also found in nature knowing what to do every single time. I wonder if it always will. I’ve seen the reports about plants flowering too early and the bees waking too soon, and hearing about our ecosystem being in disarray in new ways frightens me. So much of our existence rests on the symbiotic relationship we have with nature, and when it’s under threat, so are we.

To be honest, I find myself resisting the magic of this season at the moment. I want to see its transformative aura and believe it, like I have previously, but something’s out of place and throwing me off. Maybe it’s that things for me just aren’t really in order and a new season is a sign that time is passing, and I’m an expert at wasting it. I continue to stagnate as the world around me prepares to bloom; it’s a strange but not unfamiliar feeling. I know well that life is hard to get back into when you’ve acclimated to the sidelines. But I also know my place is reserved, and I have to remember that I can return to the core. The trees will get their new leaves and I’ll instinctively mirror them with my own version of renewal, of coming alive again. And even if I keep resisting the magic, spring will still colour my life because that’s what it does as a restorative paintbrush — it doesn’t miss a spot. To be surrounded by vibrant flora and not feel it changing and charging you, even a little bit, is impossible in my opinion.

The color green relieves me
of something I've carried too long,
each clump of grass reaching up
through last year's leaves like a nest
where I can lay my fragile worries
to rest at last. I walk lighter now,
as awake as the maples sending out 
their red buds like tiny bouquets
tossed into the air by a warming wind
so that I might catch more than one
in the wide-open bowl of my hands.

— “Relief” by James Crews

My spring-inspired playlist from last year:

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Some books I’m eyeing:

• ‘Near to the Wild Heart’ by Clarice Lispector

• ‘Love’s Work: A Reckoning with Life’ by Gillian Rose

• ‘The Book of Delights’ by Ross Gay

• ‘The Secret Lives of Church Ladies’ by Deesha Philyaw

Some letters/essays/articles I’ve liked a lot recently:

• ‘Everyone’s Writing Sounds the Same Now’ by Eliza McLamb

…We can all pull from the well of beauty and feeling and meaning and it will never run out. We may all be telling the same stories over and over again, but they will mean different things to every person who encounters them…

• ‘Why don’t people date their friends anymore?’ by Serena Smith

…But as most dating app users will know by now, the paradox of choice can be stultifying, especially as these apps hardly allow us to engage meaningfully with the essentially infinite number of strangers we’re presented with…

• ‘Objectifying Expression’ by Charlie Squire

…You must forget yourself and your opinions and your experiences, you must be empty to make space for the painting to move inside you. The painting must move through you…

• ‘The Desire Question’ by Daisy Alioto

(Chloé Williams) …To desire, it’s a good practice to not always have what you want. And to be desired can be an imposing force where you’re having an idea put onto you that belongs almost entirely to someone else…

Some songs I keep coming back to:

• Unaware by Mk.gee

• ROY G BIV by Daneshevskaya

• Begging You Now by Girl Ray

• Invite Me In by Wild Ones

• Tal Uno by Barrie

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I get a surge of energy after each post on here which annoyingly fizzles out after a few days. One post a month isn’t a lot to ask of myself but I get all worked up and overwhelmed (remember the fear and perfectionism I mentioned in ‘Writing Without Inhibition’?) about what to write/if I’m a “good” writer/if I should even have access to making my thoughts public and three days turn into three months. I’m trying to get better at internalising that not every letter/essay/word vomit will be groundbreaking or up to my impossible standards and that’s just fine (Lisa Olivera is my hero for reminding me of this).

Thank you for reading. Let’s do this again sometime soon,

Katheryne <3

“April prepares her green traffic light, and the world thinks Go.” — Christopher Morley.

1. In retrospect… why did I do this??? This is literally Substack!!!