When The Light and Colour Gets Back In
If you live in the northern hemisphere too, I’m sure you are overly familiar by now with the colour grey.
If January had a colour it would definitely be that. And I don’t know about you but I don’t do so well with grey weather.
I love autumn and the rain. I love February with its snow and blue skies followed by higher temps.
But January… Its Dutch greyness turns my already fragile mind into an impenetrable, darkened place where any light immediately gets sucked in like a black hole never to be seen again.
Until that first day when we see a streak of something colourful peek out from behind those clouds, and suddenly it feels like all the black gets cleared away by the blue, as if in a Looney Tunes cartoon.
My village changes too when the sun returns. People come out of their houses to soak up its rays and tidy their front gardens. The hello’s when you pass another human come out more chipper and even the sound of garden equipment is less of a nuisance as we know they are readying their backyard for spring to properly arrive.
I have stood to soak up those rays and got to photograph the first crocuses last week. All purple and green and fresh.
Renewal
Renewal. We talk about it every year, but this year it feels more poignant.
So many of us lost sight of ourselves in the insanity that is 2025, too occupied by worrying, fearing and raging.
Renewal reenergises. Renewal clears the air. It makes room for the new and for the return of our energy to fight the good fight.
While the grey of January had me locked inside myself, there was one thing that kept reminding me of what comes after.
Every week me and my mum would buy ourselves a bouquet of tulips, adding colour to a colourless time.
Each week a new bouquet grew and bloomed, full of colour with its big fresh green leaves poking out of their vase this way and that.
And all it needed for it to blossom and flourish each new day was simply for light to touch it.
Welcome spring, with all your shades of light.
Sandra Postma
Posted on 12 March 2025 on Substack
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