UK: A Celebration

UK: A Celebration

 

spring-garden-vintage-colorsThere are clouds over London again. But if you stop and look up and squint, you will see a tell-tale pearlescent lining that was not there before.

The trees along this street stand tall and bristle-dark as they have through the winter months. But if you stop and look up and squint, you will see small, white buds that were not there before.

When the mornings come now, they arrive a little earlier on a bobbing melody of birds.

The children wake more easily now, and swing their bare legs out of bed without a wince.

Outside, the people at the bus-stop at the end of the road turn to each other and smile and nod before they board the fat red double-decker that bears them away to the city.

I feel a lightness in me that has been absent for a while.

At home, I unlatch windows that have stiffened and swollen over the last few months. They groan, then give, suddenly, in my hand, and swing open. The outside air rushes in. It smells different.

In the back garden, my birthday rose is turning green.

I stand quietly then smile and give thanks.

Other people’s words come to me. I think of e.e. cummings’ poem in Just, which sings of a world that is “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful.” I think of Philip Larkin’s Trees and its whisper: “Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.” And I think of Gerard Manley Hopkins asking: “What is all this juice and all this joy?”

What is it? It’s Spring. The seasons have turned, at last.

How will you celebrate?

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Sophie Walker of the United Kingdom. Photo credit: Karen Arnold. This picture has a public domain license.

Sophie Walker (UK)

Writer, mother, runner: Sophie works for an international news agency and has written about economics, politics, trade, war, diplomacy and finance from datelines as diverse as Paris, Washington, Hong Kong, Kabul, Baghdad and Islamabad. She now lives in London with her husband, two daughters and two step-sons. Sophie's elder daughter Grace was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome several years ago. Grace is a bright, artistic girl who nonetheless struggles to fit into a world she often finds hard to understand. Sophie and Grace have come across great kindness but more often been shocked by how little people know and understand about autism and by how difficult it is to get Grace the help she needs. Sophie writes about Grace’s daily challenges, and those of the grueling training regimes she sets herself to run long-distance events in order to raise awareness and funds for Britain’s National Autistic Society so that Grace and children like her can blossom. Her book "Grace Under Pressure: Going The Distance as an Asperger's Mum" was published by Little, Brown (Piatkus) in 2012. Her blog is called Grace Under Pressure.

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