It’s been a rainy month – wet in a way that settles and seeps into your bones. It’s hard not to feel betrayed – green shoots are up, there’s a stretch in the evening and let’s face it, we’re all more than ready for a little bit of sun. But February is forcing us to hang tough. And wait.
And so it goes, just when you think that nothing’s happening – transformation. Somewhere in between Doris and Ewan we escaped and found that the lovely turloughs had returned. What are usually grassy hollows had filled with water through unseen, underground passages in the rock. The turloughs are like magic – they appear, then they disappear just as quickly. When they materialise you can’t remember what the place looked like without them. Weren’t you always here? It’s hard to believe that vast lakes can invade us at a whim becoming part of the scenery and then leave overnight, as they choose. As soon as they’re gone, it’s almost impossible to imagine they were there at all. A few months back the whooper swans were skulking sadly around – searching, calling loudly for their usual water holes. The turloughs didn’t oblige and the whoopers had to move on. Now, just when we thought they’d skipped a year, the lakes are back again and lovely again and surprising us again.
It just goes to show, nothing ever really stays as-is. When you feel things are at a standstill, change is still occurring – even if it’s unseen and underground. Nature, life – it can’t help itself – and suddenly POW! Things are different. You wonder how you got to this next stage and can barely remember what it was like before.
Winter and Spring make great conspirators.
Seeing the turloughs makes me want to do my best to not let things pass me by and creep up on me. I’ll try to take more notice, be more in the moment… all of that stuff. But life is busy and soon I’ll be wondering where the daffodils went, when the last, truly dark, Winter’s evening was and where the time goes. I am only human… but, if nature can do it so grandly, maybe there’s scope for just a little personal transformation too.
i am Laurie m 