The springiest spring of them all

I don't think I've ever loved a spring quite as much as this one. Ever. And I've been curious about why, so after giving it a surprising amount of thought, I've arrived at the rather unremarkable conclusion that it's because I've simply been paying more attention.

This is our fifth spring in the valley, and looking back, I can see that in the previous four, I was understandably rather preoccupied. Our first was spent travelling back and forth from Melbourne, still getting to know this place. The following year we were living in a house that received almost no sun, which, for a family who worships the stuff, wasn't ideal. Then came the renovation, during which I was so thoroughly consumed by decisions about paint colour and door handles that I didn't even notice a single leaf unfurl. Last year we'd spent winter in Brazil, and arrived home just as everything was beginning to wake up. Lovely, of course, but somehow we missed the anticipation.

This year, however, I've been here for the whole thing. The long, cosy stretch of winter, the first suggestions of spring, and then the extraordinary quickening of everything coming back to life. And I've been watching it all with a kind of unbridled (perhaps excessive) enthusiasm.

It began with the trees. Those tiny buds appearing on bare branches, growing steadily fatter until they could contain themselves no longer, then bursting into the most delicious shades of lime and chartreuse. The leaves are so tender at first, almost translucent. Then they unfurl and stretch and suddenly, seemingly overnight, there's a whole tree where a bare skeleton stood only days before. I find myself looking at the same branches every morning, amazed by how much has transformed since yesterday.

I've been giving our seedlings similar attention. Historically, I've been excellent at sowing seeds and somewhat less excellent at the business of keeping them alive. I have a tendency to begin with great enthusiasm and then become distracted by something else, leaving the poor things to fend for themselves. But this spring I've been unusually diligent. Bringing trays inside on cold nights, moving them out of the strongest sun, watering, checking, inspecting. Radishes, beetroot, silverbeet, lettuces, onions, cosmos, scabiosa, snapdragons; I am unabashedly invested in their progress. The first shoots were exciting, but now they're producing their second sets of leaves, and honestly, judging by my excitement, you would think I'd never seen a plant grow before.

Over the weekend we harvested an entire bucket of potatoes from about half a square metre of soil, which basically just seems like witchcraft. The broad beans, on the other hand, are taking their time, and unfortunately they're growing in the spot where the tomatoes need to go. I suspect some are now destined to become green manure rather than dinner. Such is the life when gardening!

And somewhere amongst all this budding and unfurling, I've noticed something shifting in the studio too.

Winter was an unusually quiet time for me creatively. There were other things in my life requiring attention, and although I thoroughly enjoyed the cosy, inward-looking pleasures of the season, I found myself missing that familiar feeling of being full of ideas. I've never really experienced a creative drought before, and it was rather disconcerting. I kept waiting for something to arrive, and for quite a while, nothing did.

Then, around the beginning of spring, an idea appeared. Just a colour palette at first, and the vaguest sense of a design for a cushion. I began making pieces to see if I could understand the idea better. One piece became another, and then another, until it became clear that whatever this thing was, it had already outgrown its future as a cushion. It wanted to be a small quilt. And then, quite unexpectedly, I realised who I wanted to make it for, and everything seemed to fall into place.

Since then, the ideas have been coming again. I've been spending more time in the studio, following one thought into the next, remembering how much I love the mysterious process of making something without entirely knowing what it will become.

So now I can’t help but wonder about my quiet winter. Was I was too quick to call it a drought? Perhaps all the creativity books are right when they say there are periods when creativity simply turns inward? That while there may be less to see in the fallow, something is still happening all the same. Or perhaps I was just tired and preoccupied? I'm not sure. It may have absolutely nothing to do with the seasons. But when you spend so much time watching the world wake up around you, it's difficult not to notice when something internally seems to be waking up as well.

And while all this new energy has been arriving, I've also been noticing a rather different kind of change in myself.

I've always been good at initiation. Give me a new idea, a packet of seeds, a project to dream up, and I'm away. It's the ongoing, rather unglamorous business of tending these things that has historically been my downfall. The watering, the remembering, the showing up again tomorrow. I'm very good at imagining the harvest, but considerably less reliable about everything required between planting and picking.

Lately, though, I've been making a conscious effort to change that. Nothing sophisticated. I've just been getting into the habit of checking the seedlings, remembering to feed the sourdough starter, regularly making time to move my body, and generally trying to follow through on the things that matter to me. Small, ordinary acts of attention, repeated often enough that they're beginning to feel like part of the day rather than additional tasks to remember.

And I've been surprised by how much pleasure I've found in it.

There's the obvious satisfaction of having something to show for your efforts. Bread on the table, seedlings thriving, potatoes in a bucket, a new quilt taking shape. But I think what I've enjoyed even more is the feeling of being involved in the growing. Of noticing the small changes as they happen, rather than looking up one day and discovering that something has either (thankfully) flourished or quietly died from neglect.

Perhaps that's what has made this the springiest spring of them all. Not that the plants are any greener, but that I've been here to both notice and tend them. And I've found, rather unexpectedly, that the tending is every bit as satisfying as the impulsive beginning.

And in saying this, I also reserve the right to change my mind once it’s time to stake the tomatoes.