Bloom in the winter
My new year’s wish for you.
“Life goes on abundantly in winter. Changes made here will usher us into future glories.”
—
, WinteringHello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter that’s hand-painted and hand-lettered, from my desk to yours.
When I began working on my newest illustrated essay, “Like a Garden in the Winter,” it took me a good while to figure out what I wanted to focus on for the artwork.
Even though the story itself is filled with trees shedding their leaves and branches being stripped bare, those weren’t things that I really felt drawn to paint — perhaps because this winter hasn’t been like any winter I’ve experienced before.
As I loved sharing with you last week, I gave birth to Elena’s little sister, Eva Grace, two weeks ago, and so this winter hasn’t been a season of things being stripped away or laying dormant, but a time of new life and new arrivals.
This is the winter in which we became a family of four.
One night in early December, as Jose and I talked about what I should paint for the essay, I told him about the snowdrops I once glimpsed in Oxford. Snowdrops aren’t part of the story, but they kept coming back to me when I thought about what I was inspired to illustrate.
“Well then you should paint them,” Jose said, as if it were as simple as that, and then he proposed doing a whole series of flowers that bloom in the winter.
And as soon as he suggested the idea, I knew it was the one.
Bloom in the winter.
In some ways, it sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? But the more I researched which early bloomers to illustrate, the more fascinated I became.
By Lenten roses, which I read “prosper in cold temperatures.”1
By spring starflowers, whose bulbs “need a chilling period to bloom.”2
And by my beloved snowdrops, which receive all the sunlight they need to flower when the tree canopy hasn’t yet filled with leaves.
Now that the essay is finished, I love that it has this other, almost secret message woven through it — a story beneath the story, like a spring bulb hidden below the frozen ground — and it’s what I’d love to share with you today, as my New Year’s wish for you, and for myself.
In a time when all feels dormant and at rest, I hope this season will surprise you with moments of color and growth, and with hints of new life when you least expect them.
Here’s to blooming in the winter, friends, and to a bright new year ahead,
Candace
Your winter climate in Belgium must very different from mine in temperature and water. In western Nevada, there is winter wheat waiting underground to pop up in early spring for summer cuttings. Other than that, all plants are dormant now, with seeds for the birds and summer's growth for the browsing deer and wild horses. Dried grasses also feed the horses who hide from winter winds in the back country hills. There are springs of water bubbling into ponds for them and other wildlife to drink. But I'm surprised that you have flowering plants that thrive in cold temperatures. About the only things that are popping out in the months to come are calves. Some have even arrived this week. In Carson Valley, we have the Eagles and Ag Festival Feb 8 - 12. Photographers love this time because during the calving season in February, the bald eagles migrate through and feast on the afterbirths in the patures. It's warm enough here where the calves are born in the fields rather than taken to calving sheds as in the northern states. like Montana. Brrrr! I can't imagine how they survive. Your drawings and information today really opened my eyes to nature elsewhere. Thank you. And I hope your and Eva,Elena and Jose are thriving this winter as well.
The elk, quail, eagles, deer and other creatures who hide in the night are coming down from the mountains into our valley. They are our winter blossoms.
And speaking of creatures in the night, my New Year’s wish for you is 8 hours of solid sleep at least two nights a week. Yes, even dads know a little bit about unrelenting sleeplessness, especially this dad, who once had jet lag for ten years in a row.