Spring cleaning
The Cove Journal by JoDee Samuelson
We did it. It’s Spring. Six months of darkness are behind us and we have officially stepped into the six brightest months of the year.
The Oxford English Dictionary requires six pages to define “spring”—about as many pages as were needed to list all the MacDonalds in an old PEI phone book.
I think spring begins on March 21 but the Farmer’s Almanac states that Spring Equinox won’t occur on March 21 again until the year 2101. I must put this date behind me for the rest of my life.
The equinox is the day when the sun rises due east and sets due west, and everyone—whether in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere—receives an equal amount of sunlight (12 hours). People around the world—in Mexico, Cambodia, Peru, Egypt, Malta, Ireland and Italy—have celebrated this day for centuries, erecting ingenious structures where on the equinox light peeps through a hole or casts certain enigmatic shadows.
We have nothing that clever here in the Cove. We know it’s spring when romantically-inclined squirrels start chasing each other around the chestnut tree, male goldfinches turn gold, returning geese honk overhead, when we wake up early—we feel like getting up!—to hours of glorious sunshine.
What to do with all this light and energy? Of course we can uncover the garlic, clean the woodshed, sweep the path and rake the muddy driveway, but we’ve lived indoors all winter and it’s time to pick up after ourselves. Yes, it’s time for Spring Cleaning.
Because I have a friend who’s a big fan of Martha Stewart, I checked Google to see what Martha says about spring cleaning. You can read her instructions for yourself but simply put, she is big on Deep Cleaning. Stoves, mattresses, toilets, cupboards, toaster ovens, all deep cleaned. Books and ceiling fans dusted, couch cracks and floorboards vacuumed, doorknobs polished. No speck left untouched.
She recommends using vinegar and baking soda. No mention of Murphy’s Oil Soap, Bon Ami spray… or Hired Help. If you’ve seen the documentary Martha on Netflix you’ll know that she drives herself pretty hard but also has plenty of staff.
My mother knew that spring cleaning is not something that should be tackled alone. She enlisted her staff—us kids—to wash, wax and polish the floors, clean the porch, vacuum under beds, sweep the basement. I always got stuck with dusting the furniture. How I hated those old photos on top of the piano!
Meanwhile Dad would climb a ladder, take off storm windows and wash the outside glass. Suddenly the whole outside world was new and shiny too! None of this happened in one day. Many things had to settle for a lick and a promise. Secret cleaning product? Elbow grease.
I happen to have plenty of elbow grease on hand so I’m going to start spring cleaning—shining up my own world—by washing our dust-and-salt-sprayed windows.
… Did that. Oh dear, I see dust on the stairs, on the bookshelf… there’s a price to pay for letting all that brightness into the house. I guess dusting is my destiny….
