Gayani Jayathilake

Winter blues and foggy greys had painted a layer so thick that I could not paint over or through it. I had used every brush and stencil to cut through. To no awail, as my eyelids drooped more and more each day.

Then one day came a wrap, wrap, knock. Not on my door, but from outside. I tightened the fleece around me and walked towards the window through thick mists of winter woes and murky greys and searched for where it came from. The dismal clouds that had been burdened with a thick gloom for months, that was beginning to get under my skin, had parted that morning.

There lo and behold, was hope. Colour. A mere pinpoint. But I knew that was the doorway. The earth had cracked open in places and out peeked bright yellow buttercups. In the coming days, through constant creepy watchful gazes by me, yellow winter wolf’s bane took over the land. Then came an onset of snowdrops. They made sure they arrived only on even and odd days.

Having been buried downunder in several feet of snow and gloom for months on end , just when I was about to lose hope this happened. The pinpoints of colour made me rush outside. The sun that fought through thick clouding to peek in on them made the colours glisten and shimmer in awe. Beaming under skeletal trees that had not yet leaved they filled onlookers with happiness. They became a stop spot for early pollinators. I read about them. They had a habit of racing out in bloom before the foliage thicket of trees shaded over them. By the time the forest trees shaded the floors these flowers would have disappeared back into where they began from. Waiting for yet another cycle to begin the following year. I read the accuracy of the timing of these arrivals was spot on. Bloom too early and they could be damaged by freezing temperatures. Bloom too late and birds would have already migrated.

Interrupting article with a side note. Call it breaking news if you must.: Coexisting with nature not going against it is the trend now. Join it. It’s cool to say I am one with the nature around me. It’s all the rage. Especially now. And gone are the days where we only thought of the beauty of our gardens and snapped off these early budding wild blooms right off their stems, even before the early pollinators reached them, even before the seeds were ready to fall off, to plant those only fit for us humans.

In the coming days, I would like to say hours as the popping up of early spring flowers was a speedy blur, they covered the land. One by one they arrived and left faster than they had arrived.

Barefeet that brushed across the soft cloved meadow, bumblebees that accidentally bumped across my toes, looking at that one patch we left in the name of wildlife, coloured uncoloured beetles nibbling on fluffy seeds and flower blossoms without any segregation, the cherry tree boughs that lower to shade the starling family nested in a cove, it is all education. Free education.