The Spring Proper Collection -- A Letter

Spring is here, and the leaves have unfurled. So it is with a new collection—Spring Proper: the language of new starts, greetings, blossoms, and vibrant green, with a poetic bent courtesy of Masaoka Shiki.

This season has also been enriched by Easter, hence my travel guide to Vatican City—language useful for navigating such a World Heritage site, along with a video to offer a kind of vicarious tour.

One cannot help but think of Renaissance art—of Michelangelo and Sandro Botticelli. Murals and frescoes. Rebirth. As in nature, so too in art.

That carries us into the apple blossoms soon to delight the northern regions, and into a symbolic work by the English painter John Everett Millais. Spring, yes—but also youth.

And this wraps around to a simple English rhyme: “April showers bring May flowers,” the inspiration for the cover, combining religion, festivals, youth, and rain all in one go. The new element here is an exploration of 穀雨. Does it match your sense of the season?

In the last three or so language guides, the Native Links have been completely revamped to include deeper dives through articles, video, and music—hard-to-find corners of the web curated by me, not a machine—to connect you to high-quality materials you can take into the wild.

Take, for instance, a record on “April Showers” from Bing Crosby—a quintessential Americana sound.

Or a way of looking at art: apple blossoms with the team at Smarthistory.

The spring playlist, the Seeds of Thought, the language guides—a small feast of resources to animate your everyday English life.

May it lead you toward good and beautiful things.