spring fog in the New York Times...

Around this time last year, I received an unexpected email asking me to write an essay about fog for the New York Times. Although my draft was received with great enthusiasm and the process of commissioning artwork began, in the end (much to my disappointment!) the piece was pulled due to ‘logistics and limitations’.

It seems a shame to let words and work go to waste so, now that the spring fogs are with us again, I am sharing the essay with you here. I hope you will enjoy it.

It is dawn. A spring sun rises above a valley filled with fog. The top of the sky is powder blue but the trees and houses below are sunk under opaque white cloud, which eddies like smoke. This unexpected fog is both absence and presence, stillness and transformation. Sensing its whispered invitation, I pull on my jeans and tiptoe out into the morning.

Like the day’s first billowing breath, the fog rises from a nearby field. Its beauty is gentle and unassuming: a softening of lines, a thickening of air. The long grass shimmers, polished by dewdrops, and gossamer tangles of spiderwebs cling to sheathing leaves. I weave through them with careful footsteps, pausing in the fog’s swirled centre to stand where cloud and sunshine meet: a molten blend of light and water that drapes across the landscape like a rippling golden cloak.

Caught up in filmy liminality, time flows differently, stretching and mellowing. As fog wraps the world in quietude, details and colours crystallise into focus. The cool touch of fog on my face soothes me — surrendering to it is the closest thing I know to prayer. In winter, fog may settle in until nightfall, or linger as long as a week, but in spring it lasts only until the day warms up and the world re-emerges. Poet Maggie Smith writes about the concept of a ‘beauty emergency’: a brief and passing wonder that has to be seen immediately before it disappears. Spring fog is exactly this — a momentary interlude of joyous beauty, intensified by transience.

I walk on, towards the bordering hedge which carries the scent of blackthorn and wet nettles. Picking a few sprigs of blossom, I slip them into my jacket pocket. The pale downy tail of a rabbit bounces ahead me, running away through silvery mist. Blackbirds call from the bushes, their song not muffled by the fog but, it seems to me, clarified. Behind the hedge, the path leading up the hill is lined by Queen Anne’s lace, milky petals shining. Its fragrance sweetens the air and the star-sprinkled froth marks my way. Flowers, like fog, exist only for a short time — their loveliness seasonal and fleeting — to experience the two together is a collision of delights.

At the edge of the fog, the sun is breaking through. Rays dance diagonal, quivering fingers of gold that reach into the horse chestnut tree and set its candelabra blooms aflame. I climb to the blinding place where blue meets white, and step out onto the hillside. Now above the fog, I can look across to the peak of the opposite hill, but the town in the valley remains obscured by a billowing layer of cloud that reflects and intensifies the light. Skylarks trill, the sun touches my face, the breeze is warm and leaf-fresh but the fog still calls to me — its promise of wonder never waits. I seek it out, I immerse myself, I am absorbed.

Descending back along the path, the gathering dampness curls around me once more, wrapping me up and beckoning me in. I make my way home, my pocket full of white petals that fade — like the fog — before lunchtime.