Spring Cleaning Season

As the silky spring sunlight slowly slips across the floor toward me, I can feel my spine stretch like a content cat coming out of its nap. The sun is delightfully warm as it hits my toes and slides up my legs. I’m so happy to feel that warmth and my vitamin D factory starts coming out of shutdown. We’ve been craving this sun. The rays are the perfect angle to reach the depths of my winter brain.

I relax into the warmth and just as I’m about to close my eyes, I see it. It’s layered all around – it’s dust.

Curses come to my lips! I sigh and lean forward toward the glass lamp on the table beside me, running my finger swiftly over the circular base … and it is confirmed. It’s officially spring-cleaning season.

As I rub the dust into a tiny ball, I think back to a time when I was a sassy teenager and wrote in the spring dust on one of my parents’ Bombay Company campaign tables. Two words: DUST ME. I giggled to myself and then ran my fingers through the potpourri in the bowl my mom had artfully arranged on the table – the clementine peels and patchouli oils still fragrant from Christmastime. 

Several days later, the sun shared my secret message. My mom … lost … her temper. “Top to bottom,” she said. “The entire house.” 

Needless to say, I spent the next several days cleaning the house, and I mean, every surface. Vases and coasters were picked up, washed, put back down. The books pulled off the shelves, gently wiped. I stopped to read a few pages of the magazines my mom collected. I helped with the sheets, and shaking out the pillows and beating the smaller carpets outside. Lemon-scented Pledge filled the air in our century farmhouse. The surfaces were slippery and dust-free, if only for a short time until the windows slid open to let the farm field dust in. 

I look around my beautiful house here in Mono and decide to dig in. I keep a small bin of rags, that make me so happy. They are old towels ripped into small squares, and pillow slips and sheets cut down to manageable sizes. These rags are the best for the actual deep cleaning and are used over and over until they’re shredded and ready for the bin.

I pour a bucket of warm and soapy hot water and soon, I’m into it. Everyone out! I put my little ear pods in and listen to my playlist. It’s all so satisfying – the instant gratification of clean surfaces, that vitamin D sunshine assembly line ticking along, beautiful tunes in my ears and the smell of fresh air and my favourite soap. I am not naturally a cleaner; I’m fairly tidy though. Day to day, I’m constantly cleaning dishes and the counter, and cleaning after cooking and having a coffee. But I’m no Marie Kondo, my home is not austere, and this is not the place you want to “eat off the floor.” (Public health teams would not approve.)

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But every once in a while, I want to dig in like this, scrub everything down, and have a little purge. Spring seems to be the right time. We’ve been hibernating all winter, and everything feels a bit shaggy. It’s nice to put away so many of the layers we have collected over the winter in our little human caves. Blankets are washed and folded nicely, the slipcovers from the chairs are put through the wringer, papers are sorted, and filed and shredded, and the donation bags make their way to the garage. 

The house feels new and fresh, and for a few days we take our shoes off at the door. Bowie, our handsome black cat, gets the “fritzies” and howls his springtime sexy meow. Anyone looking for a date? Zoe, our Lurcher, gives Bowie a chase and they scatter their claws and nails in circles in an end-of-the-winter jicker (one of my favourite Scottish words, a precursor to “zoomies”).

I say goodbye to a few plants that are not coming back from the dryness of the season. It’s time for a few new plant besties. I whisper sweet promises to them that I won’t over- or under-water them and that they’ll live forever! I pull out some seeds to start sprouts and shake a few packages, holding them up to the light to see what’s inside. Maybe I’ll start something new this year and grow seedlings indoors to get a jump on the growing season, as good Canadians do. 

Everything feels alive again and it’s a good feeling.