My friend Adelle recently came home, having spent a year in an Andalusian village. She said she was so pleased to see the cold, fresh light here. I found this really odd, because one of the reasons she had left was that she said she couldn’t bear another January in Dublin, the greyness of it. But with un-jaded eyes, she found it beautiful.
I went for a walk in the park Sunday afternoon and the light was gorgeous, the sky showing pastel smudges behind sketchy trees. But today was grey, January grey, and it was a conscious, if not huge, effort to find colour.
Firstly, green: So ubiquitous here that it’s nearly invisible, but look. Look at the grass and the moss and the lichen. When that low Winter sun hits it, it is luminous.
Pink: Montpelier Hill is a hodge-podge of a street, with practically every kind of city housing represented. There’s purpose-built student housing; a row of artisan cottages; apartment complexes; some very handsome Georgian houses, with a Christmas wreath still on one door, and then a cluster of semi-detached houses with front gardens, a Viburnum in one of them. In a street that is constantly surprising, it is still a lovely surprise.
In the park the sky is grey and empty. The wet tarmac footpaths look more midnight blue than black. There are very few people around.
This time of year I think about pigeons, their muted lilac and beige against iridescent green and dusky, faded navy, the shock of a milk-white feather. It’s how I want to dress just now.
It’s what I want my home to look like, too, like there’s endless layers of softness – softness both in colour and to the touch – but with a sliver of startling brightness, like nature so often, so generously provides.
Nature is also great for providing metaphor, or suggesting that there is a narrative. Despite the seeming anarchy and brutality of real, wild nature, its persistence, the persistence of the turning of the seasons tells us hope is possible.
Every Sunday on Twitter, Alyssa Harad anchors the #FlowerReport, where people from all over the world post photos of flowers they have grown, or have noticed on walks. Harad describes it as “A celebration of the persistence of beauty, and the beauty of persistence” Obviously the contributors are a self-selecting group, but it is extraordinary how much meaning people ascribe to the first sighting of a snowdrop, say, or the tenacity of a weed. There have been (bad) days where I’ve nearly cried, thinking about the naivety and optimism of this network of lovely people seeking and finding joy in things that grow.
In the end we are all just simple organisms seeking the light, and Spring is on its way.
Currently: Hand-stitching linen Luncheon napkins. They’re slightly smaller than dinner napkins, presumably because there’s less eating and drinking in them. Very January.
Lares Linens 