SPRING
Need we go over renewals and rebirths via buds and blossoms? I think it’s best, for a personal blog, that I stick to what’s authentic to me right now—and as a new mum with two toddler springs under her belt, all I’m really interested in is the mud. Or more specifically: when the fuck it dries up.
Didn’t the ground used to be hard over winter in the 90’s? Can I not remember months-long Arctic temperatures as a small kid? I can deal with hard ground—it’s my preferred kind, to be honest. Last year, during the one week the ground froze, I leapt out of bed pre-sunrise and forced the dog out (with his silly little dog shoes to prevent freeze burn on the paws, I might add). I took loads of pics of the pretty frosty foxes scavenging and befriended a lonely, cold horse. Magical.
I’ll tell you what’s not magical: mud.
It destabilises my favourite towpath walks, my runs, my outdoor hitt class. It seeps through my trainers, and even my wellies can’t navigate it’s madness. I want boots designed for mud, not just muddy bloody boots to be left at the door, to be dried, then brushed then all again tomorrow.
I see no mothers out with their toddlers in the play parks - “Where are you all?” I scream—but the mud doesn’t even echo my loneliness back to me. It’s refracted by the slop and sludge into nothing. I take a towel out on my most optimistic days. I wipe the slide. We never last long before someone is stuck, IN THE MUD, and it’s tears and back to prison.
I’d like to think I’ve become one of those parents who doesn’t care about all the washing—oh, life’s too short, etc.—but god, all the filth, all the loads, all the electricity and—again—we’re back on climate change.
Is the crux of my hatred for mud the symbolism of all that makes me truly guilty and anxious? The deadly thawing of the world?
No. It’s just fucking muddy.
Spring brings the safety of solid ground again. The temp went up a mere one degree, the sun out a half hour longer—and the mud is cured. I can forget it for at least eight months, can’t I? We are now outward-bound and able to take our eyes off the muddy floor to look for buds and blossoms and bluer skies.
