Spring in England: A Homecoming

Spring - Week 14 - On the Familiar and the Far Away

In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures — and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.

The first thing I notice upon arriving in England is thousands of daisies pushing up through the lush green grass. I've never thought of it before, but daisies now seem quintessentially English. I don't recall seeing them in such numbers in Colorado—not in quantities that make one stop and take in the view, their white faces like stars fallen to earth, nestled in a sea of green. And just like that, the earth whispers to me "...you are home".

It's an unusually sunny, warm morning in London. Spring arrived here many weeks ago, settled and confident, while Colorado is still caught in that familiar dance — warm sunshine one day, snow flurries the next, in the unpredictable rhythm of mountain springtime. Two places, two springtimes, two different ways of belonging to the land. The air feels different here, softer somehow, carrying memories along with the fragrance of cherry blossoms. There's an intimacy to this season in the land where I grew up, a familiarity that touches me deeply. Perhaps it's because I know the rhythm of this place in my bones, the way we know the breathing patterns of someone we've slept beside for decades.

Winding my way north to Warwickshire heartland, I watch as the countryside transforms into a living canvas of spring's finest work. Tree-lined roads grow denser with each passing mile, creating corridors of dappled light that feel like passages through my own history. Fields are dotted with newborn lambs, playfully bouncing in lush green meadows. Between these pastoral scenes flash brilliant patches of canola, or rapeseed as it's known here. Their golden flowers so bright they almost seem to generate their own light against the rich earth. Above it all stretches a rare, perfect blue English sky. The landscape feels impossibly full, brimming with life — a reminder of how this island first imprinted itself on my heart as home.

Arriving at my Mum's garden, this explosion of spring continues. We sit outside as huge bumble bees buzz lazily around the flame of the forest, visiting its delicate white blossoms while the red new growth begins to fire with color. The forsythia bushes blaze bright yellow against garden walls and hedges, while everywhere daffodils are pointing their faces toward the warm sun, as if in conversation with the light. There's something so moving about witnessing these time-honored blooms. Some I've seen return faithfully through childhood and now again in my later years, marking the chapters of my life with their reliable beauty. There's a poignancy to their radiance that catches in my throat. How something so ephemeral can return year after year with such persistence and grace, like the feeling of belonging that never quite leaves us, no matter how far we travel.

As I sit again in my Mum's garden, listening to the symphony of birdsong that fills the air, I realize how different the soundscape is from my Colorado home. Here, the trilling of the blackbirds dominate, punctuated by the cooing of wood pigeons and the cheerful chatter of sparrows squabbling in the hedges. The dawn chorus begins earlier here, a gentle awakening rather than the sudden mountain sunrise I've grown accustomed to. These sounds were once the background music of my life, so familiar I never noticed them until they were absent. Is this part of what makes a place home — the sounds we stop hearing when we leave?

Near my Mum's house stand two magnificent cherry trees, their trunks several feet broad, their presence spanning the full arc of a human life. Like silent sentinels who have witnessed generations come and go. They've stood through wars, celebrations, and countless seasons of change. Right now their massive canopies are poised on the verge of erupting into blossom, and we all wait with bated breath for this spectacular annual event. It's become something of a ritual, this collective watching and waiting — a natural landmark that we measure our years by. The knowledge that since last year more old neighbors who shared this gift won't witness this year's display, adds a quiet note of reflection to our hushed expectancy. Perhaps this is another element of home: the shared rituals that connect us not just to places but to people and time itself.

Living between two places creates a curious split in the heart. When in Colorado, I miss this lushness, these ancient pathways, the sense of time folding in on itself that I feel here. But I know that when I leave the mountains, I'll yearn for their majestic silence, the crystalline quality of the air, the way stars seem to hang just overhead in the thin atmosphere. A friend once asked where I feel most at home, and I couldn't answer directly. Perhaps home isn't a single place anymore but a constellation of locations that hold different pieces of my heart.

“Rooted”

I've laid down roots in many places,

each one growing deep as if to hold forever.

But I've learned to pull them up,

to follow where life leads.

Now, weathered and worn, I carry my roots within me

to plant again wherever I am.

— Penny Harter

The connection to the earth here resonates at a different frequency, one tuned to my earliest memories. The particular slant of light through morning mist, the distinct shade of green that makes everything lush and abundant, the way the sky arches overhead with its familiar moods and patterns — all speak to me in a language my soul has never forgotten. Yet Colorado has taught me a new way of belonging: the language of vast open spaces, of dramatic weather that demands respect, of communities that form tight bonds against the wilderness.

Yesterday, we drove along Steppy Lane, a narrow, winding country road that skirts the ancient woodland near my Mum's house, where bluebells have erupted into a spectacular display. Through gaps in the hedgerows, I caught glimpses of the forest floor transformed, an otherworldly sea of blue stretching beneath the trees, thousands upon thousands of delicate flowers creating a hazy carpet that seemed to capture the sky and bring it down to earth. No Colorado landscape offers anything quite like this particular blue, this English woodland magic that appears for a few short weeks each spring. We slowed the car as we passed, trying to absorb the fleeting impression of color and light, knowing we couldn't stop but also knowing that no photograph could ever truly capture this concentrated beauty that has returned faithfully for centuries.

This sacred land with its ancient hedgerows and winding footpaths doesn't just welcome me back; it reveals how deeply the patterns of this place have shaped my perception of beauty and my understanding of time. But my American home has reshaped me too, teaching me to appreciate different rhythms, different landscapes, different ways of connecting to the earth.

This visit has reminded me of something essential: the roots we put down in childhood reach deeper than we realize. They continue to draw nourishment invisibly even across oceans and decades. I find myself using expressions my Mum taught me that the grandfather I never met used, noticing plants he would have pointed out, feeling his presence in these landscapes he loved. In this way, returning to England is also a conversation with the past, not just with my own memories, but with the generations whose DNA shaped my way of seeing the world.

Tomorrow I'll visit the churchyard where my grandparents rest. We'll bring spring flowers and stay a while looking west toward the River Anker. It's another ritual that marks the cycle of seasons and remembrance. But this year, I'll go with a renewed understanding that carrying multiple homes within me isn't a division but a multiplication of belonging. The pattern of this English spring this year has helped me see that home isn't just where we come from or where we live. It's the sum of all the places that have written themselves into our hearts. It's all the landscapes that have taught us different ways to belong to this beautiful earth.

As dusk falls and the garden grows quiet, I find myself at peace with this duality of the heart. The daisies close their petals for the night, and I close my eyes, feeling the soil of England beneath me and the memory of the mountains within me. I am no longer caught between two worlds but enriched by both. A fortunate traveler who has been given the rare gift of belonging fully to more than one place. Perhaps that's the truest meaning of coming home: not the return to a single point on a map, but the recognition that we carry our many beloved places within us, wherever we go.

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—> What moments of natural wonder caught your attention this week? Please share your stories and photos in the comments below. Let's experience nature's gifts together.

As always, thank you so much for reading and supporting me.

Love,

Jane