Made in Dublin: sun of spring

The sun shone again in Dublin.

There was a time, in February, when the sun didn’t shine for 11 whole days. 

Met Éireann kept a day count of how long it had been without the sight of sun rays, and everyone collectively sighed.  Most Dubliners didn’t even notice for a week, such is the greyness of winter, in this city. 

But as a longer time came, people felt ill at ease.

The lack of light, and endless dense foggy cloud made the Dubliners less chirpy and less able to demonstrate the famous craic agus resilience.  But the sun did come back, and now all the daffodils are sitting up straight, while the birds busily make their nests and there’s enough heat in the day, for the humans to go about their business.

In Dublin, at the first sight of the spring sun, it’s common for people to throw off their clothing, as though following an ancient form of ritual.

“I have no need for these hats, scarves, gloves and other garments,” those people say.  “Indeed, I have no need for socks or tights, or long-sleeved tops!  Let me celebrate the sun by wearing shorts and t.shirts and opened toed shoes!  I AM SPRING”.

Watch them standing tall like the daffodils, the people, in the sunshine.

Others have come back to the city:  the short-term tourists, and the English language students, and the swallows.  You see the students with their bewildered expressions and matching language school rucksacks.  They have no more interest in learning the language than the man in the moon, but they like shopping at Penny’s and kissing people from other schools.  They complain about Irish food and the weather.  Their exhausted looking, anxious teachers chaperone them around the streets and try telling them about the Irish revolution, Molly Malone and Bono.  

The students are not interested in this content, currently.

If the students come from the Mediterranean, they struggle all the more when they see Dubliners walking down O’Connell Street without much clothing. They take photos of the anomaly to show friends and family back home.  They caption the photo with the phrase:  just look at them!

Meanwhile some daffodils came up too soon this year:  they popped up out of the ground in the first week of January, and now they are all gone.  They were frozen over in January or blown away in February.  But the spring daffs, the ones that waited for the sun, they are the ones on full display now.  The patient ones, the ones with an end game. 

The daffodils are of no use to birds or the pollinators, but they make the humans happy.  Humans love how the flowers reflect the sun, and nod their heads, and respond to light.

The daffodils reply, “look at us!  Here we are again!  Aren’t we beautiful and a little bit divine!  Admire us please!”

Meanwhile, the sun watches over it all again, another hustle spring, another season of growth.

Everything is waking up again.

And in the quiet of spring, the sun replies, “it was always me”. 

This is the way that it is.