A fresh spring dawns – chilly and unpredictable, like the energetic sea, but alive with possibility

Brendan O'Connor

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March 06 2022 02:30 AM

The weird thing is that in the middle of all this I can feel spring breaking out not only in me, but in the world. And what a spring. Really, it’s been three years since spring broke out. It tried to break out this time in 2020, but then winter came, a long winter, with all the darkness and hibernation that brought.

Of course there was good weather in the pandemic, and we were out in it. Indeed, we were obsessed with the weather. The colour of the indifferent sky dictated our mood most of the time. But it never felt like spring was coming. It never felt like the world was coming back to life. Until now.

Last week, between the two dark ages, I wandered around West London with my wife. When I saw West London I mean the posh bit, the charming rom-com bit. Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill. We wandered around in the spring light, having coffees and snacks, with no agenda other than to be there, in the texture of another city, where you see things like Alan Yentob carrying around his foldable Brompton bike, and people who look like they are maybe models, or at least rich, rich people like you don’t see in Ireland, people with rich skin and rich hair, people who were actually born with rich skin and rich hair because the rich skin and hair and even teeth go back generations.

They are languid and relaxed in their richness, inhabiting it easily as they wander into wildly expensive delis and immaculately tasteful interiors shops that sell the mid-century modern Scandi look, but at a level you’ve never seen before. It’s nice to be out in the world again seeing people who are different to me.

The difference in the texture of everything makes it feel like the world is opening up to me again, that an hour away I can observe things that are so strange and different, and I can wander through streets full of foods from every corner of the world, and people from everywhere, all hustling in some way, big or small, to win in London. Because London is a race.

At that point the invasion is just a promise that none of us believe will really be kept, a distant rumble of thunder at the picnic.

As spring proper begins on March 1, the light couldn’t be brighter and clearer. The sea is cold and choppy, so you have to fully engage with it and be attentive to every movement of it, lest you get a slap in the face or a lungful of water. This kind of energetic sea isn’t always my favourite. I like to get into the flow with a flat shimmer so I can drift off into my head as the body strokes for me. But the choppy sea is just right for the start of spring. You have to engage fully, to dance with it, every bit of your body and mind focused on working with it. No space to think about anything else. And it is alive and full of possibility, as the world should be at the start of spring.

And for a little while I revel in the freedom and wildness of it and forget that this might not be the start of spring, just another false dawn between two very different dark ages. But then, maybe this is the future. Maybe calm seas that you can stroke mindlessly through are a thing of the past. Maybe now the world is going to be choppy and always moving unpredictably, and maybe it’ll take all our attention to negotiate it.

But for now, I’ll try and embrace the new start, breathing fully again without a mask, not hiding anymore, open to the world. And maybe somehow it will all be OK and we can stop living in a state of minor loss and grief and greyness. Spring is here, and who knows how many any of us have left.

So jump in, the water’s unpredictable.