Every year in the depths of another wet and cloudy West Coast winter, I tell myself I love the rain. I love the soups simmering on my stove, I love the quiet hibernation of November and the soft fairy lights we string all around our house. And I do treasure that time in the dark, to cook and nest and slow down. (Though, with two small children, any relaxing days have been few and far between these last years.)
And then sometime in the early year—usually March—there comes a day when the sun breaks free of the mist and the air warms enough to lose its teeth, and I can feel my body coming alive again. Suddenly I’m inundated with ideas for writing projects that have lain fallow through the winter. I lose chunks of my days fantasizing about fresh fruit from the local market. And the urge to get out in my garden and start planting too early is often painful to resist.
I’ve often joked I’m part plant, but that first infusion of proper sunshine honestly feels life-altering in these often dreary months. And now today, Spring Equinox, our days will creep ahead of our nights as more little green noses poke out from the ground and the cherry blossoms open, and underneath it all is a miraculous sense of movement.
My writing practice tends to shift toward themes of growth and movement this time of year—new loves or difficult relationships or journeys across fantastical lands. The thing about growth is that it’s usually as painful as it is amazing. As exciting as it is to try something new, to take that new job or start a new relationship, there’s always an element of fear when you step into the unknown. While spring arrives in a riot of colours and blooms, that beauty came from a silent violence beneath the soil. From bulbs and buds splitting their skin and stretching, vulnerable and raw, into an unknown world full of pecking birds and nibbling rabbits and burrowing insects. But emerge they do anyways, every year.
This spring, take some time to really feel what’s happening in your body and your creativity. Is there something that’s always prickled at the back of your mind? Something you’ve maybe always averted your eyes from, because it’s too hard, or too different, or too close? Shut yourself in a secret room, write lightly in pencil and burn the pages afterwards if you must, but if there’s something deep inside you that’s aching to come out, why not let it breathe, if only for a moment?
For those local to Victoria, I have two workshops coming up, both at McTavish Academy of Art in North Saanich. April 1 is Breaking Through Writer’s Block, where we go through a series of innovative and out-of-the-box writing exercises to get your creativity flowing. And April 29 is Flash Fiction: Writing 100-Word Stories, which is an incredibly fun class centred around individual and collaborative writing exercises. Click here for more info and registration.