February

The shortest month and, in some ways, the most brutal. We are impatient with our cold, wet, dismal days and tired of the enclosing, suffocating interiority of winter. We have all had enough of hygge. We ruminate on the nature of cupboards; contemplate their surprising capacity for attracting, welcoming and then sheltering the most pointless junk. We attempt our annual cleansing rituals but our hearts are not yet engaged: we need the bright mornings of spring; the sharp light which illuminates forgotten corners and those eyesores which have become almost acceptable in the fug of these dark months. We are heartily sick of our abstinence; our dullness and containment. Of sitting on sofas. Of not going out. Not eating salad.

And yet. There is a point to all of this. Consider the house plants. While their cousins in the garden have withered and shrivelled in the cold and are waiting expectantly for their renaissance, house plants are largely unchanged throughout the year. Their leaves are still green and waxy; their needs met by limited watering and feeding and the occasional dust of their foliage to assist breathing.

I have begun to question why we keep houseplants: they absorb such space and time and add to the accumulation of  ‘stuff’ we need to take care of.  Some, it must be said, are downright ugly. I have a crowd of them in my conservatory and I feel their brooding, mutinous natures imprisoned cruelly behind the double glazing. I talk to them and play them Mozart but they don’t engage much. They are happiest close together, where they arrange their leaves communally so that all of them get enough light. In summer I take them out and give them a sunbathe on my garden table. But their unchanging perpetual demeanour makes them rather boring, even though they are decorative. Their lives are artificial. Whereas the garden plants come and go, disappoint and surprise in equal measure and remind us of the cyclical nature of life; the yin and yang of existence. They have a life of contrasts.

As, of course, do we.  So we must endure these last weeks and wait for spring. Already, in the park, there are small gorgeous gems of crocus poking through the cold mud and wrinkled leaves. We must fantasise about summer which, when it comes, will no doubt be ‘too hot’ to enjoy. In truth, every part of our year has its light and shade; its absence and presence. Its circularity and inevitability. And its wistful power to evoke the nostalgia of our personal and collective memories.