2003-02-18 11:24 am
Spring
It's round about this time that I start thinking to myself: spring is just round the corner. I begin to think of March as the first month of spring, rather than the last month of winter. I see drops in temperature as a farewell peck on the cheek from Mr Frost. And I begin to think about lying on my back in the park like a strange bottle white lizard.
The onset of spring is always accompanied by the desire to sort things out, especially gardens. If you do not have a garden then you will probably find yourself cleaning your house from top to bottom. However this is only a poor substitute for the real thing. The desire to clean things is of course a ritual that expresses a deeper need for renewal and reinvention, prompted by our sympathy with the natural world around us. It is this sympathy that is beautiful, not the act or the ritual itself. That all living things are in tune with one another still, that all move along certain basic, fundamental cycles, seems to me to be a great joy. It is the loss of these joys, the joys of a messy garden, that characterises the dehumanisation of certain unfortunate members of our species, like me.
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