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Notes From Here & Now: Signs of Spring

Hello out there –

If you're in the top half of our globe, spring has sprung. At home in Northern Ireland, I have a bit of a garden for the first time in my life, and I'm beginning to see buds appearing in trees, and the bees starting to make their rounds.

Although, if you're in the bottom half of our globe, it's time to shut up shop for winter. Of course, in reality, there is no top half and bottom half of earth. The placement of north at the top of maps is simply a convention we've adopted for the sake of uniformity. Who's to say it couldn't have been the left and right halves of our planet that determined seasons or weather patterns? Everything, when it comes down to it, is all about perspective.

Which is important to remember when we think now about the season of spring. This is the time of year that is truly (more so than January) for new beginnings. You see it in the natural world around us, and we feel it in our bodies.

When we view our surroundings with the momentum of a world awakening from its winter slumber, the air is filled with potential. This potential is shaped by the perspective we choose to adopt.

How is this translated in reality for me? I'm spring cleaning my computer desktop. Finally. After procrastinating on this task for about seven or eight years, I'm finally organising the files and folders scattered across a picturesque landscape photo curated by Apple. I'm giving them proper names and placing them in their rightful locations, so I can actually find them in the future without needing to hire a private detective.

It gives me a strange sense of accomplishment and order. Like I'm taking stock of my subconscious, getting my house in order, just so I can go out and make a whole new mess again.

For anyone else out there undertaking similar endeavours, I hope you enjoy the satisfaction of temporary order as much as I do. It's nice knowing where to reach for something should you ever need it again. Like this grandfather who produced the very thing for a specific job – a piece of wood he'd been saving for thirty years, just in case! So enjoy your spring cleaning as we embrace this new season, fully.

–Oliver