Writers’ piece
Four writers wax lyrical about their favourite time of year.
SPRING
Being born in the middle of an Australian summer is one of the worst things that has ever happened to me. Every year on my birthday I endure the kind of weather that makes you feel like you’re trapped inside an unwashed belly button: close, slick, humid. Half the time it’s gloomily overcast, as well.
If I’m lucky, the air will become so thick with moisture that there’ll be tropical rain in the afternoon, drenching my laundry and pissing all over my al fresco birthday drinks. Not so for my friends whelped in the blessed months of September and October, whose efforts at surviving yet another fucking year outside the womb are rewarded with the second-best birthday present you can get: the bliss of spring. (The best gift is a big novelty cheque for a million bucks, obviously.)
Spring is a reminder that whatever terrible shit is going on, the planet still wants to nurture new life. It’s the end of seasonal affective disorder, the cheeping of newly hatched birds in the nest, and the renewed possibility of seeing people’s knees in public. Watching the deciduous tree outside my bedroom grow all its leaves back, the green shoots getting bigger by the day, is a more powerful antidepressant than every serotonin reuptake inhibitor known to man. (In the joyful and naive spirit of spring, please do not investigate the scientific accuracy of this claim.) I’d pay 10 per cent more tax on my income if it meant an extra three months a year of 22-degree weather, crisp breezes, and sitting outside in the dappled sun without risk of overheating and disintegrating like an overripe tomato.
Speaking of overripe tomatoes – the food! When spring rolls around, I’m usually at the point of winter cooking exhaustion where root vegetables have become my sworn enemy. I have chronic parsnip poisoning and shepherd’s pie dropsy. If I have to mash another potato, I will vomit and die. Hydroponic farming may have blunted vegetables’ seasonality, but humankind has yet to replicate the magic of fresh asparagus. One of the best things to come out of the 1970s – including bell bottoms and no-fault divorce – is primavera, a dish where you toss gently blanched spring vegetables like peas, broad beans and broccoli shoots with pasta in a light cream sauce. Spring is also the perfect time to make kuku sabzi, a delicious and adorably named Persian frittata chock-full of fresh green herbs.
In recent years, the Danes have tried to export their concept of hygge – a word that basically means ‘snuggling under blankets by the fire in winter to prevent death from hypothermia’ – to the rest of the world. I have no problem with hygge, but I do feel bad that it’s too cold in Denmark for them to accept the Australian springtime concept of ‘daydrinking in a public park while eating little bits of cabanossi and watching the baby ducks swim around the pond’. Name an activity better than that. You can’t. One afternoon of lying around on a picnic rug on a warm spring day fortifies me through the whole year, like the booster shots my cat gets at the vet every 12 months. If a goose steals one of your water crackers, you’ll have good luck until next spring.
It’s not really in keeping with the breezy, optimistic vibes of spring to criticise other seasons. The case for spring makes itself, and that’s what I love about it. It’s the Disney princess of seasons. I spend the other three waiting for that sweet sense of ease and possibility to come around again, whining and moaning my way through winter every year like a dog cooped up in a crate. Maybe that’s part of why I like it so much: everyone, including me, becomes less annoying in spring. Just tell me that doesn’t sound good right about now.