Letters to Viv: When the Daffodils Rise

A letter about spring in Normandy, burned pages, and the quiet return of hope.

Letters to Viv
Open, soul-packed letters to the kind of human I write for: the curious, creative, exhausted by the hustle, and craving something more. I’m writing to you (and me).

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Dear Viv,

I was walking the chateau grounds this morning.
Cold air. Mud is gripping my boots like it’s staking a claim.
Grey sky performing its usual dramatic French monologue.

And then — daffodils.
Snowdrops too.

Bold as brass
In February.

Daffodils at the Chateau

Back home, the earth is still asleep. Here, something is already awake.

They’re just there. Yellow and upright.
Pushing through the earth that still looks half asleep.

I stood there longer than necessary.
Boots planted. Breath slow.
Properly looking at them.

I’ve had a week.

We did a ceremony to close the Year of the Snake. Wrote down what we are done carrying. A few tears were shed. Then we walked out into the dark, fed the pages to a bonfire, and watched them curl into ash.

After that, we stood in a circle and screamed.

Twelve grown writers in a French chateau garden, howling into the night like a pack of elegant lunatics. It was oddly excellent.

Something shifted.

This morning, the daffodils are up.

They rise. They open. And take up the space they deserve.

My chest feels like that.

Air is moving through it.
Room where there used to be tension.
A small, steady joy sitting under my ribs.

Spring doesn’t consult a timeline. The soil warms and something answers.

I don’t know what’s next.
I can feel that something is already in motion.

That’s enough for today.

Something is already rising.
In the soil.
In me.
And I am finally steady enough to let it.

XO,

Tanya (aka Lady Fraser)

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