Meet in expensive beige raincoats

Short stories, springtime and loving Lorrie Moore

Welcome to Writing with the Seasons, a series of writing prompts, ideas and inspiration. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up here!

---

The spring flowers are here! They’re here! Daffodil and crocus parties in gardens, showy grape hyacinths lifting their purple cone-shaped heads on my doorstep, bees buzzing and woodpeckers pecking in the trees.

Everything feels more visual, like a wall of a gallery, every space filled with framed paintings or all your friends gathering and talking nonstop.

Oh, it’s a relief after the grey winter mornings to see light and colour and movement!

I plan the Write & Shine writing workshop programmes months ahead, so I started thinking of spring while leaves fell and shops sang with Christmas carols. Strange really, to let myself imagine who I might be in several seasons' time. Anticipating, too, how those I write with might be feeling. What they might want to explore more deeply, topics they might want to discard or have energy to face.

This winter I read a lot of novels, biographies and essay collections. Thick books holding whole lives or grappling with the politics of our times. Books I could think and dream with, leave face-down on a chair while I made dinner, then return to afterwards.

But I knew that when the days grew longer, I’d want to sit in the spring sunshine with early bulbs shooting colour from the potted soil. I’d want to drink a cup of tea and read something in its entirety.