Now, more than ever, we all need a new beginning
WE’RE locked down, the weather’s taken a turn for the worse, there’s nothing on telly, and we’re in a month that historically feels like it lasts for at least 84 days.
There’s a lot to dislike about January, particularly this one. It’s a long time until pay day, we don’t see a lot of daylight, the weather is cold – and that’s if we’re lucky – and many of us are making things a million times worse by giving up meat or alcohol.
But I’m now going to try and convince you that January is not a month to hate, it’s a month to cherish. I love January and I’ve only ever seen it as a time of optimism and joyous new beginnings.
Let’s get the big moot point out of the way first. I realise we’re in the middle of yet another surge of what feels like an everlasting pandemic. We’re all sick of it, we’re all worried, we’re all depressed and we’re all hoping things improve as soon as possible. But therein lies my first point about January. It’s the dawn of a new era. Hopefully.
It’s the start of a year on which we’ve pinned hopes that things will change, vaccines will start to take effect and our misery will end in a few months.
And it’s this sort of optimism I start off with every January. I don’t make new year’s resolutions, or go on diets, or give up beer, but I do see it as a welcome end to a depressing
chapter in nature’s cycle.
We don’t know what’s around the corner, but nature does. We can see the new beginnings, the start of a new annual cycle, everywhere we look.
Without breaching any guidelines, while I’m out walking my dogs, I can watch the catkins opening on hazel trees, and I can see snowdrops poking through the ground. There’s even some daffodils starting to spring up beside a
footpath I walk along.
I’ve set an app up on my phone which tells me, at a glance, how much daylight we’ve gained each morning, and I know it won’t be long before we start to see a noticeable change in the length of our mornings and evenings.
By the end of the month we should start to see crocuses and lesser celandine popping up, heralding a return to the colourful seasons ahead. We might even start
to see the odd early blossom and it won’t be long before the daffodils start to flower.
January is a gateway month. I grant you, very little happens, but it’s a month we can watch this wonderful reawakening begin.
So many people see winter as a depressing time, but I see it as a time when we finally start to see the earliest signs of a long-awaited return to the best season of all, the spring.
This will sound daft, but the arrival of the summer is always tinged with disappointment for me. It’s the season that sees the start of a decline. Days get shorter, the weather’s getting worse every day and autumn is waiting in line, to take us kicking and screaming into the dullest and dreariest time of the year.
Winter, on the other hand, once Christmas and new year are out of the way at least, is a time to sit back and watch it all start to begin again.
I love cold, crisp mornings and wrapping up warm to go out for my daily exercise with the dogs.
And then when (if) it snows I’m like a kid at Christmas. I know that, when winter arrives, the countdown has begun to frog spawn, dawn choruses, lambs, swallows and skylarks, the first kiss of warmth from the sunshine, and that gorgeous spring colour I’ve missed so much for so long.
And this year, more than ever before, a new beginning is something we all need.
So I implore you, don’t look at January as a month of disappointment and drudgery. Embrace it, and enjoy the changes that are already happening all around us.
It won’t be long now until spring is here. And, if the Government is right, the new beginnings we’ll see this spring will be the best reawakening we’ve seen for a generation.