Of False and True Springs
Some notes on our Fifth Season
For me, this season doesn’t only mean spring cleaning (not of the yard, but of the personal space), but also a time of reset, awaiting the dizzying pace of the warm months. Amid the background noise, I’ve been taking notes and preparing my creative process for the arrival of spring. Here are some of my thoughts.
As April settles in, I have been fooled more than once on the arrival of “True spring”, whatever that is. For some, it’s the crocus, for others, the coltsfoot. For me, it’s definitely the willows, and red maples. I’m biased towards native plants, yeah. But the bees are too.
Snow has tried to make a comeback at least three times since our “False spring”, almost a month ago. March 17 was especially warm here, with temperatures oscillating from above 10°C, and never going below zero. Then, the end of the month was cold, with some days barely above a maximum of zero.
As the maple sugar season ends and the willows bear their cat-toes, my winter-sown seeds still await germination time. The bees are sleeping under the leaves, but not for long.
I never know what to think of our “fifth season”. It always feels like a let-down because we expect winter to finish sooner, doesn’t it?
At the same time, we relish the time spent at the sugar camp, licking the taffy from a stick. The slow signs of spring surely popping up, one at a time.
Is this spring the true one? Is it not?
Why are we wedded to four seasons anyway?
All these questions are so mundane for many people, and at risk of sounding cliché, with the constant gloom, we forget the blooms.
Breaking away from the onslaught of “content”
It’s been a hard fifth season for some of us. I’ve been wanting to do a digital detox for a while now, without success.
It doesn’t help that changes are occurring at a fast pace, everywhere. The Internet is becoming a performative beast to feed with our attention and content, and as a creator, I struggle to define as a “content creator”, a thought that I’ve found echoed across many of the very people who now bear that dubious title.
Because content is just that, content. To fill a file slot in an image-and-video-driven set of platforms. To create for views and reactions. To ask a thinking machine to come up with an image from a vague sentence, giving a chimera-image with some bits that don’t make sense. Like the Chimera of the Greeks, mythical monster made up of various bits of real-life animals. Seems easy, right? Until you realize it’s all kind of soulless.
Gets pretty futile
When you see it’s just drawing
Stolen chimeras
- Non-AI haiku, 2025
Published art is associated to content. But unpublished art isn’t.
That’s why nature journaling has become a refuge for me, at least in my head. But in reality, I really need to make the time. It’s become a goal of mine for this warm season.
A binding, a club and some cards
I’ve done many things to keep myself from mechanically rubbing LED screens with my thumb.
I’ve bound my first sketchbook, for example. From a set of 8.5x11 pages cut into booklets, sandwiched between maple taffy cone cardboard pieces.
The coptic bind method (Google it, it’s old as sin) has given me great results, albeit my crafting hand isn’t the neatest. I’ve been trying to break free from my own perfectionism, making friends with my inner critic, and feel this is part of it. This binding allows my sketchbook to lay flat. Along with the Accordion fold method, these two can be combined with greater-than-expected results (This series of videos and website helped me a lot to think differently of paper notes).
I’ve also founded my first club, the Hemiboreal Nature Journal Club. That way, I’ll have a reason to go outside and document nature. More on that later.
I’ll leave you with the artist trading cards I started making. These are not overwhelming to do and can take 10-15 minutes on average for me. They’re a great way to replace the scrolling.
That said, I hope you’re doing well in this beginning of spring, and that you’re not taking things too seriously. Remember to have fun and enjoy the season that’s slowly manifesting itself!