"Where flowers bloom, so does hope."
Lady Bird Johnson
I've never seen spring, never smelled it, never heard it in birdsongs, nor felt its moving touch away from a biting winter, ushering to a warm summer.
All my life I've lived near the widest part of the seemingly round earth. I've only woken up to either a bright, electric sun, or a shy, gloomy one, a tiring heat or the forgiving kind. I've only seen trees lush and green in the tropical wet, and trees crisply shedding, though not ever completely, in the tropical dry. All throughout the year, it's summer, and I've been grateful for it.
I've experienced winter, autumn, and summer in other parts of the world. But, what does spring feel like?
I've wondered about it all through April. I was seeing wisteria hanging by walls, misty mornings by a coast, cherry blossoms and peonies blooming and falling in a whisk of the wind, tulip fields so carefully organized by color, it makes me want to shout a glorious praise, washed out sunlight and colors about to wake up, secret prairies of wildflowers making themselves known. All of these, I've seen through the screen on my hand.
Many parts of the world are waking up with spring, getting vaccinated little by little, allowing a dose of freedom we all so terribly miss.
But the flowers didn't bloom on my side of the planet. Instead, it told me to go inside, to go back in my four white walls and shut the house down. I did. Though I forgot to bring hope in; I've left it outside.
I've always considered myself hopeful, but through April, I've struggled. I tried to break out of it like I tend to do, but the lack of inspiration seemed to hang heavy in the air, the whole community locked in and quiet. I've blazed through my reading, traveling through worlds and time like I've never done before, losing myself in stories just to get out of my mental misery. But there it is—languishing.
"Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021."
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"Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either. You’re not functioning at full capacity. Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus, and triples the odds that you’ll cut back on work. It appears to be more common than major depression — and in some ways it may be a bigger risk factor for mental illness."
I think when I finally got a word for what I was feeling, it started to get better. I'm not saying I'm completely well, but I think I'm getting there. Maybe I can experience spring soon too, or at least the notion of it.
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This post is part of our #2021SelfPortraitChallenge — portraits of different themes per month, may it be an idea, a feeling, or some technical camera stuff.
April is all about spring.
My friend Leticia are both on this, join us! Check out her work on Medium here.
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