Taking in Spring (right before this weird weather rolled in)
It’s the yellow of the daffodils more than anything that brings me to attention, where they’re blooming in the square patches of dirt surrounding Gramercy Park. It’s the yellow, more than the buds on the trees or the winter coats ceding to unbuttoned cardigans or the wide-open windows in the apartment, that carries the craven promise of spring. It’s the yellow that I stare at and stare at until it still doesn’t look like it belongs. It’s the yellow that best reflects the yearly exclamations among friends and acquaintances the first time the air loses that slap and we all act like something entirely unexpected has come to pass.
You live in Manhattan and when it’s winter you walk on a grey sidewalk toward a brown building in your black wool coat. I imagine that if you live elsewhere the equation is altered slightly by dirt-caked cars and slushy roads. Universally, you light candles that burn a weird white and the whole world, even in the rural parts, appropriates its color scheme from your average NYC subway station. And then, one day, yellow flowers.
I'm Sarah Stodola, the author of Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors (Summer 2014). 