‘WHAT WORKED FOR ME’

Nature writer Anita Sethi reflects on the hope that comes with spring every year

I WAS BORN IN MARCH and have always felt hope blossom in my heart at the promise of springtime. ‘When the flowers bloomed, so did I’, I would joke about my birthday.

There is something impossibly exciting about the glimpse of the first golden daffodil after months of bleak wintertime; it is the knowledge of the bulbs themselves, all that incipient life growing beneath the earth, the possibility of beginning again, that has helped me endure.

I grew up in inner-city Manchester where there was not much in the way of rolling meadows, woodlands or rivers in walking distance, although the city is surrounded by the beautiful natural landscapes of the Peak and Lake Districts. For nearby nature, I had to learn to train my eye and heart to see urban nature – the dandelion in a gap on the pavement, the ladybird on grey concrete, the sun rising over rooftops. One day, just before a bitter northern winter made being outside unbearable, I helped my mother plant bulbs at a busy crossroads and marvelled at how those bulbs would one day flourish as a glory of colour and life. Seeing them flower a few months later, I felt the formidable and regenerative power of nature.

Training myself to seek nature in this way has been healing. ‘Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts’, said author and conservationist Rachel Carson. ‘There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.’

Focusing on nature in the outer landscape calms the inner landscape, soothes the anxious churn of thoughts and gives us the strength to keep going through the toughest of times.

Anita Sethi is the author of ‘I Belong Here: A Journey Along The Backbone Of Britain’ (Bloomsbury, £14.99), the first in her trilogy on nature; anitasethi.com; @anitasethi