Spring arrives not with a trumpet blast, but with a series of small, unmistakable gestures. It announces itself in human habits as much as in hedgerows and skies. The Novena begins, quiet and rhythmic, drawing people back into shared ritual. RAG Week bursts onto the streets with colour and noise, reminding us that youth and mischief are perennial forces.
Down by the lakes, the scrape of paint from boats rings out — a harsh, hopeful sound — as hands prepare hulls for water and livelihoods for renewal. These are not grand symbols, but they are honest ones. Together, they signify something deeply felt: the stretch in the evening is back, and with it, a loosening of the spirit.
Winter always feels longer than it truly is. Dark mornings swallow the start of the day, and long nights press inwards, encouraging retreat and endurance rather than ambition. Even the most resilient among us shrink a little under its weight. Spring, by contrast, feels like emergence.
We come out the other side of something, blinking, recalibrating, surprised at our own survival. Light lingers after work. Conversations extend. Plans are made again, tentatively at first, then with growing confidence. There is an unspoken agreement that we may begin to hope.
And yet, the wider world refuses to follow the seasons. The news remains heavy with doom and gloom. Wars grind on, stubborn and unresolved, as if immune to sunlight. The drip-feed of revelations — names tumbling from Epstein lists, power structures exposed but not quite dismantled — leaves a sour taste. The world order feels unstable, shifting beneath our feet, its rules rewritten in real time. Even as daffodils rise, there is the nagging sense that something is fraying.
This contrast sharpens the experience of spring rather than dulling it. The renewal of the local and the familiar becomes an act of quiet resistance. The scraping of paint from boats matters precisely because the world beyond the lakes feels so uncertain. Preparing for a fishing season assumes continuity — that there will be fish to catch, markets to sell to, mornings worth waking for. RAG Week’s irreverence insists that joy has not been cancelled. The Novena suggests reflection without paralysis, faith without denial.
It invites an unsettling question: was it always like this? A hundred years ago, did people feel the same dissonance — crocuses pushing through soil while the world lurched headlong toward catastrophe? History suggests they did. Ordinary life persisted alongside gathering storms. People fell in love, repaired tools, marked the seasons, even as the ground shifted beneath empires. Perhaps this is not hypocrisy but necessity. Humans cannot live permanently at the scale of global dread.
Spring does not solve our problems, but it recalibrates our perspective. It reminds us that cycles endure, that light returns whether invited or not. In a world that feels increasingly unmoored, these seasonal signifiers anchor us. They whisper, insistently, that starting again is still possible — and perhaps, still required.
