Slow Seasons: Spring
A slow story, a guide, and a few gentle reminders.
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No day is ever the same, but there are seasons that make you wonder if you’ve been here before—and why you’ve returned.
Once again, on a train ride home from the city, I encountered someone pointing a large camera at anything and everything. This time, I was by myself standing in the corner of the car as the man with the DSLR tried to get my attention. He smiled, an opal earring dangling from his left ear. His focus shifted from what was right in front of him (me) to any signs movement happening at each stop. He’d carefully lift his camera, only breaking concentration whenever the train swerved roughly through the tunnels.
Unlike the woman from the winter who was consumed in her own creative bubble, there was a clear difference in mood—and a distinct awareness between me and this person. But I was tired. So tired. I kept my gaze firmly on my book, rereading the same sentences as I glanced his way every so often. When I took a seat a few stops later, it wasn’t long before he began gesturing in my direction. I froze, wondering how to respond until another man appeared where I’d previously been standing. He and the photographer, likely friends, started chatting. “I wanted to shoot that woman, but she’s all wired up,” he said at one point, feigning defeat. It was true. I’d been wearing tangled earphones for the entire ride, though nothing was playing. It’s a defense mechanism that I’ve only adopted in the last few years.
I wanted to shoot that woman, but she’s all wired up. Removed from the original context, the statement embodies so much of what it’s like to be alive in 2026. I recently (cynically) joked that in an age of malicious technology running rampant, that we are actually the paranormal activity. That human needs have become deprioritized. Our impulses are difficult to trust—trusting others is even harder. Writing this makes me sad, and it also brings to mind a passage from my essay “Spring” in Slowing, “I only have enough energy to make sure that what’s in front of me is real—and that makes sense right? There is so much about modern life that makes us doubt our decisions. Our innocence gets swallowed up.”
Despite all of the doubt and horror, I’ve never felt more grateful for the fact that seasons clearly mark time. They show us that we’ve made it through yet another period of chaos—that there’s so much more we can make: art, choices, connections. And this is the time to do it: Spring reanimates and it also revives. It’s a season of newness, but moreover, it’s a season that extracts what we’ve buried deep inside—placing it in our hand again before taking the other and leading us onward.
These recent seasonal encounters with creative strangers have reminded me that while we may not always talk, we can still connect with others in the most unexpected places. That a moment can capture us just as much as we try to capture it. And we should let it. Again, I refer to my essay in Slowing, “I think that’s the true beauty of spring: taking stock of the present while hunting for small miracles or moments, and in turn, the questions we forgot to ask along the way. What would happen if we looked a little further than what’s in front of us? What would we find if we dreamed toward the sky?”
Later, and just like the woman from this winter, the photographer and his friend exited the same subway station as I did. I looked a little further than what was in front of me, but didn’t see them again. The April sun hugged my back as I committed the moment to memory and a pile of petal confetti gathered at my feet.
SLOWLY ENJOY SPRING
Enjoy solitude
It’s one thing to embrace solitude on dark days, it’s another thing entirely when the sun is dialed up all the way up. If winter is about accepting the unknown, spring is about enjoying the moment of arrival; meeting yourself where you are—sometimes alone, on a walk through the park, remembering how it feels to move and be moved by the littlest things.
Spring clean your books
I’m having one of those seasons where I’m collecting books more than reading them, but their presence is always so welcome (even when the piles take up every available space in my apartment).
As I’ve made way for new additions to my personal library, I’ve realized spring cleaning your books is akin to reorganizing your mind. Dedicate a room or area of your home to a different genre. Put the books you’ve been putting off at the forefront. Curate a TBR table! Then open your window and settle into a story (or two).
Repurpose with purpose
Spring gives us so much sensory pleasure that the world often feels new again after winter. That might be why I’ve been less interested in creating more on top of this and more interested in breathing new life into what already exists in my little corner of the universe—both online and off. Even when spring feels fleeting, it’s a lesson in longevity.
Blossom hunt
As I wrote in Slowing: “Unlike viewing fall foliage, blossom hunting feels more urgent—even predatorial. I’m starved for sensation. Finding and harnessing this natural magic is the only way I can sustain myself after many colorless months.”
By the time this letter reaches your inbox, blossom season will likely be over in many places, but the same idea still applies. Notice garden beds in bloom or lush plants spilling out of open windows, be awed by verdant greens and vibrant flora. Hunt for beauty in these dark times. Gather it for your loved ones—and for yourself, too.
A SEASONAL SYLLABUS
Here in New York, spring’s arrival has felt particularly slow—almost tedious. I keep thinking of this line from Rosalind Brown’s incredible novel, Practice, “The arrival of spring hurts: those newly invented whites greens yellows against the dark wet soil, everything seems to strain and push.”
And yet, sinking into stories that move you—even if not as quickly as the changing trees outside your window—is a welcome distraction from the strain of fluctuating temperatures, and days that feel like forever while the year pushes ahead at warp speed. With that said, I’ve put together a few books on my current TBR: stories set in, published in, or inspired by the season (or ones that I’m simply drawn to when springtime finally rolls around).
SEASONAL REMINDERS
I’ve been working on an essay about this current phase of my writing life, and asked a couple of writers I admire (and who I also had the honor of speaking with for the Slow Stories podcast) to share how spring can reignite our creative lives. Keep their words close as we head into the final weeks of the season…
“Take a walk. Step away from the desk—which is to say the beehive of your mind—and leave your notes, your plans, your outline, and thoughts behind. Step out into the springtime light and feel the new warmth of the air and the fresh sense of new beginnings. Amble around the neighborhood, without agenda or direction, and let things come to you, rather than pushing to come to them. Give your music a pause so that it has more shape and resonance when you return to it.
Yesterday, here in Japan, I stepped out from my two-room apartment and went to the center of our city, where 1,200 deer roam wild around downtown. I saw the first cherry blossoms mingling with the last of the plum blossoms and heard a small doe crying out for its mother. I rejoiced in the fact that it stayed light till later than 5:00 p.m. and that many were wearing t-shirts. By the time I returned to my desk, it would be hard not to be filled with clarity and light that then I could work to try to bring to the page.” - Pico Iyer
“I spend winters feeling perpetually cold, summers forgetting how to be warm, and the seasons in between can pass too quickly if I let them. But spring is insistent: you wake up one March day and everything feels vital again. The exact hour in late spring when the first swift returns from Africa can, in some years, feel like the moment when my more creative self at last wants to come out of hibernation.
No matter where in the world a person may live, no matter how minimal or marked the seasonal changes in that place might be, we are powerfully bound as creatures to those shifts in ways that have, for the most part, been forgotten, dismissed. We don’t know how to smell soft rain coming or which trees hold on to their leaves the longest, and the paying of close attention to small changes in one’s surroundings is, I believe, wholly needed when gathering up the energy we need for green ideas, fresh narratives.” - Ella Frances Sanders via her beautiful new book, Words to Love a Planet
SPRING STROLLS
A look at what I’ve captured—and what’s been capturing my attention—this season.
SPRING STYLE DIARY
I’ve hit my sartorial stride this season with trench coats, button-downs, and standout accessories. You can follow my style updates in real-time on Instagram (and shop some of these looks on ShopMy).
For Your Next Chapter
If you enjoyed this slow story, here are a few others that might slow your scroll…