In the last few weeks everything has changed, more than I ever imagined possible. In locked-down Britain, currently we are allowed out once a day for exercise. I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated walking quite so much. Appreciated birdsong, and green leaves, and blossom.
I took these photos at the end of February. We’d just returned from a beautiful week in the south of Spain, coronavirus was being talked about on the news, there was mounting anxiety about it spreading, and what that would mean and how that would look. But I was, at that time, blissfully ignorant of what was to come. I took these photos on a late afternoon stroll across the meadows near my house. I lost myself for a little while in the light, the colours, the beautiful bokeh created by the low sun streaming through the branches. Delighting in the beauty, and the freedom and safety that I took for granted.
I pass these trees most days now, on my daily walk or run. The blossom has long gone, but there are other delights on which to feast my senses - gently unfurling green leaves, a swathe of violets on the side of the path. And I feel like I’m appreciating it, and seeing it all more clearly than I ever have before.
“The blossom is out in full now… It's the whitest, frothiest blossomest blossom that ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the now-ness of everything is absolutely wondrous.”
- Dennis Potter
