Nothing is so beautiful as Spring?

Songs (and things) for spring

Spring is my least favorite season. In South Africa it means the start of the wind blowing so ferociously that you have no choice, but to decline all invitations and lock yourself in your home, screaming until it stops. For a little while all your conversations will be about, and sometimes to the wind; you will plead with it, you will try and bargain with it, you will even try to make peace with it. Don’t be silly, it is much too powerful for you! You will look like one of those inflatable tube men every time you get out of your car. You will feel a creeping sense of dread all day long. You will be plucky and try and defy the wind by wearing a skirt. “Ha ha ha” the wind will laugh at you. You will drive like your sole purpose is to avenge every wrong ever committed against you. In short it’s a bad old time. Of course there are wonderful things: more light, warmer days and beautiful flowers blooming all over the place, but it’s hard to get a good look at them when the wind has given you a fun new hairstyle designed to totally obscure your vision. It is my favorite thing to complain about, and like the wind, I will never, ever stop.

Most people who read this though are not in South Africa. You are at the end of mostly freezing winters, watching eagerly for the first signs of spring. When I lived in Amsterdam I remember spring as, well mostly rainy, but with the glimmer of possibility. The possibility of outdoor dinners, the possibility of not arriving everywhere drenched, the possibility of heavy coats and gloves being packed away. Wherever you live, spring holds that tantalising feeling of potential; that you may in fact be one good spring clean away from who you are meant to be. You are probably not. Seasons come and go, but our obstinate personalities are for the most part, evergreen. We should ask no more of spring than to let us fling open the windows and let some air in. To make us a little more optimistic, a little more delighted. To give us fresh eyes for flowers that bloom as you blink, and birds and miraculous light! As you head towards its very first day (or, like me, are grieving summers end) here are some of my best spring things and some songs that feel like they’re blooming. (including my favorite foot stomping spring madrigal)

1. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is nuts. Growing up my mom wouldn’t let me watch Grease because she was like “I don’t like its message” but she was perfectly happy for me to watch a musical based on the Abduction of the Sabine women. Basically some men with bible names abduct some women, but there is loads of singing and dancing and then all is well? How is this a spring movie? Well just look at this! The Eric Rohmer is wonderful if you like movies that are almost like a cartoon of what French people are like. (I do) Cold Comfort Farm is just pure sweetness and delight, a springtime feast, with a lead character aptly named, Flora. If you watch this trailer and aren’t swept away I don’t know what to say!

2. Daffodils are the ultimate spring flower. Buy some for your friends! Buy some for yourself! Put them in a sweet vase, a“Greek” vase , an amber crystal vase or this fantastic Lalique vase. (cheaper copy here.)

3. Spring clothes! Look like an actual spring flower in Cawley. White lacy blouses are v important for spring, this one is from Andion, a “small workshop in Galicia, surrounded by oaks, eucalyptus and cornfields.” I would buy the set! Or maybe this Laura Ashley blouse. Or this one! A flowery cardigan from Uruguay (they have lots of good ones). And of course a trench coat, like this one from Yohji Yamamoto.

4. Watch the weather forecast and on the first nice weekend have a spring lunch! Serve some sort of springtime vegetable galette with a very green salad and then a fresh lemony cake for dessert, ideally made in a Bundt tin.

5. A hat that announces spring is here!

6. You can’t change your personality, but you can probably drink more water from a gorgeous springtime bedside carafe. This one is way too expensive, but it’s beautiful and Murano glass if you care about things like that. This one is sweet. This one is chic.

7. I really feel like the best things to buy in spring time are fresh linens. A tablecloth for your spring time lunch. French cotton and lace for your bed.

8. Spring lips like a bud!

9. A lot of good spring books take place in Italy. An Enchanted April involves a notice in a newspaper addressed to “Those Who Appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine,” a medieval Italian castle and some husband fleeing. I bought this for a holiday a few years ago (aptly to Italy!) and it is a perfect holiday read. Very relaxing and sweet. Lot’s of bits about the smell of flowers floating around “enraptured nostrils.” My friend, Rosa, who probably knows all the books gave me lots of recommendations. She says: “Daisy Miller is a spring book, even though it is summer that kills her. The Leopard is a spring book although again concerned with the like lethality of summer. Death in Venice: a spring book. I note that my suggestions are basically about foreigners dying in Italy”