Spring Again

I love this time of the year because the air feels like silk over your skin. The wind still retains a little bite, and the nights are perfect for long-winded stories and remembrances of a softer time. This year feels better, because there's a backyard to experiment with, plants to water everyday and birds to chase away.

I remember my mother being good with plants. Putting down new roots, adding here, pruning there. Organic fertilizer, and lots of love. Chrysanthemums and snowballs, forget-me-nots and dahlias, gladioli and daisies. Homegrown tomatoes and mint leaves, flat beans from the terrace garden. Fragrance in spring; sharp and piquant, mellow and soothing. Bursts of colour amidst seas of green, celebrating life in the only way that mattered.

Life turned brown for so long in between that I stopped looking for spring. The seasons mattered only in as much as whether to complain about the heat or cover up against the cold. There was no space to plant a bit of me, and no will to either. And then, in the year where everything else seemed to be going wrong, spring showed up. I have a backyard, with a lemon tree, a papaya tree and a pomegranate tree. There are plants which are beginning to sprout the first flowers of the year. The guava tree is loaded with beautiful young leaves, a mixture of dew green and red. The front yard is filled with potted plants, all crowned with the most beautiful blooms. My fingers are itching to get some mud on them.

In so many ways, professionally, this is the worst year I've had. Looking for the ideal job is always less interesting than it sounds. And the only people who know your awesome work ethic are those you already know. And yet, I can't seem to get too worried about it just yet. Someone will hire me to do something I love, someday soon. Till then, the world is green again, and that will do.