Sun, Water & Air: The Keys to Internal Spring

Green has been my favorite color since I was about 10. I don’t know what it was that produced the deep love in me for shades from pale sage to deep moss but it’s continued and only increased into my adulthood. My last three bedrooms have been painted shades of green. I own at least four pairs of green shoes. (All of which come from an amazing fair trade shoe company, The Root Collective.) My Colorstreet rep knows that the minute a new shade is released anywhere in the green family, she’ll be getting an order from me. (She’s also so fantastic that when my husband was out of work she sent me two sets of green nails as a pick-me-up, along with her thoughts and prayers.)

I remember when I choose spearmint as the color of my pre-teen bedroom, it made me feel fresh and clean, like I was in a garden after the rain. The ivy bedspread and curtains I picked out also helped with that. While I’ve learned to enjoy all seasons, I have a special fondest for the first few warm days of spring, as the first points of new growth peek from beneath the brown grass, and sometimes the leftover snow.

I always feel hopeful in spring. If February is the month where I most want to quit, then March and April are usually the time when I over-plan and over-commit, because suddenly all things feel possible. I wonder if this is part of why the timing of last year’s lockdowns and quarantines were so emotionally destructive to me.

This week in our homeschool, the kids were learning about chlorophyll in their botany curriculum. I found myself wishing that nourishing my body, mind, and spirit was that simple. That I could simply sit in the sun with a tall glass of water and feel myself renewed and replenished.

I feel like I’ve learned a lot in the last year about what I need to be healthy and what I need to grow. (Mostly due to the lack of those things). I’m not that different than a plant in that regard.

I need sunlight, both literal and metaphorical. I need time spent in nature, even when the weather isn’t ideal, even more so when it is. It still amazes me how a walk outside on a partly sunny day when there is a warm breeze never fails to increase my optimism. But I also need to be regularly soaking myself in God’s presence. Not as a duty but with the joy and peace of basking in the sun. We have a front bay window that the kids and I all like to sit in (even though it isn’t actually a window seat) because the warmth is lovely and it makes even the coldest days feel cozy. That is what the presence of God should feel like, as though I am a solar-powered lantern being recharged by his light.

I need water. Hydration has been an important part of my health for the last few years. I need to keep my intake quite high or I develop headaches and GI symptoms. But I also need to water my creative garden by doing things that inspire me. It doesn’t have to be direct investment either. My writing gets stronger when I read and sometimes doing completely unrelated activities help as well. I have found knitting, sewing, embroidery, and dance all play important roles in helping me stay healthy but also grow.

I need to breathe. This last one has been the hardest for the last year. The literal mask-wearing I do, whenever I go out in public (including more recently at dance rehearsals), isn’t easy. There are times when I feel like I’m being suffocated. But there is also the anxiety the last year has brought. I remember driving up to a local farm only to realize there were out of eggs and then going to the grocery store to find they were out of meat. My heart was pounding and I felt like I couldn’t draw a deep breath. For the first time, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep my children safe, healthy, and fed.
There are times that my life felt so confined by the pandemic that I thought my lungs would crush under the weight of it and all I wanted was to run away somewhere where I could breathe freely and easily.

While I love the signs of growth in spring, I rarely enjoy the experience in myself. Those new green shoots are tender as they break through the frozen soil. Unsure, and fearful that an unexpected frost may shock. It’s uncomfortable at the time, but the best is yet to come.

(I went way over the usual Five Minutes today! Feel free to check out other writers’ takes on the same prompt here. )