Flickers and Flurries

As I sit staring out at a fresh blanket of snow, steaming cup of tea in hand, marvelling at the iridescent boughs of a host of trees, I feel compelled to capture a slice of winter’s coruscant beauty.

Few would say there’s joy to be found in our landscape on the many grey days that characterise a British winter.

That is, unless, you know where to look.

The world ostensibly appears to be in hibernation for months on end, having wound down only to leave mud and awkward twigs where once an abundance of life could be found.

But if you creep a little closer, you see creation’s rhythms never really cease.

Everywhere you’ll find little green spears piercing the earth, bearing the promise of snowdrops, crocus, daffodils and the like. Birds busily go about their business, knowing time and tide will overcome them if they fail to find that winter worm.

And every once in a while, the sun will briefly cast those long-awaited winter shadows, its rays responsible for a collective amnesia.

We cling with vigour to the serendipity of a sunny day and suddenly the grey seems far away.

This is winter.

A bright, crisp, invigorating entity, whose magic is as dazzling when we are nine as it is when we are ninety.

Or so I imagine.

There’s nothing cosier than feeling the warmth of the sun in winter, despite having lost all sensitivity in your fingers and toes.

For a long time, I thought it odd that no one had ever thought of a word to encompass this peculiar quality.

Fortunately, my twenty-third year existing in the midst of Mother Nature brought an end to my confusion.

‘Apricity’.

I’ll always remember where, when and how I learned of it.

Naturally, I was out walking on a stunningly chilly day with some friends just before Christmas. As the beating heart of our solar system punctured the clouds, one shared that they’d recently come across the term and it was as though my world became just a little more complete.

The logophile in me couldn’t resist the endearing specificity of the word, which of course led me briefly down a delicious research rabbit hole.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary attributes ‘apricity’ to Henry Cockeram, who either recorded it, or possibly invented it, back in 1623.

As they write, whilst it’s a ‘delightful word for a delightful thing’ it never entered common parlance and as such won’t be found in any modern dictionary, making it all the more delectable.

Knowing there’s a universality to the sensation satisfies me deeply.

It confirms my suspicions that someone, somewhere, will also be basking in the same glow, thinking what I’m thinking.

And despite the fact that we’ll never meet, we’ll always know that for a solitary moment we were perhaps the two spirits most at one in the world.