Florida, where I grew up, doesn’t have seasons. Or rather, the only seasons it does have are Rainy, followed by Hurricane. I never saw the appeal of spring until I moved to a state where winter exists and all green goes away for 4 months each year. The cotton candy blooms and green buds on the trees of my college campus blew me away. I finally understood spring, despite my pollen-related sniffling. The first time I opened my windows this year, I slumped in a sober-yet-drunken stupor on my couch and just watched my curtains blow in the warm breeze for about half an hour.
Living in my own apartment for the first time, I also finally understand the urge to spring clean. It’s innate, isn’t it? I did not foster the gut-deep urge to KonMari my wardrobe as soon as the skies turned back to blue from gloomy gray. And the magic erasers (which I recently learned are known generically and the monstrously inexpensive melamine sponges) I plopped into my cart on a whim to wipe down every non-porous surface in my second floor walk up? That’s not a conscious choice I made, that’s just decades worth of evolution. Something within me, and within everybody I talk to, says things are changing, and I will be ready to welcome whatever comes next with a clean slate and a clean home.
Here’s what I’m hoping for next: pitchers of fruity beverages, vaccines for all my friends and a second dose for me, starburst jellybeans, lots of skirts billowing in the wind, and to stand in the warm sun with my shoulders exposed. But before I have the mental space for that, I have to reorganize my linen closet.
-Claire
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