This time of year, when the sun starts to reheat the earth and the breeze starts to blow sweet and cool, there is nothing better than opening the windows and letting spring chase the last of winter out of the house. Opening the windows makes me want to light a lilac candle and scrub something.
So I order a giant box of organic cleaning supplies from Grove and feel like a kid on Christmas morning when it arrives. I get ambitious with my to-do list. I plan to wipe down baseboards and wash curtains and go through all the children’s outgrown clothes. Marie Kondo is going to be taking notes from ME by the time I’m done.
I start by doing a basic house cleaning. Well, technically I have to pick up before I can clean. Pick toys up off the floor. Put shoes back in the closet. Dirty clothes in the hamper. Outdated papers in the trash. Then, finally, I can clean. I dust. I scrub floors and vacuum. I attempt to declutter. I send a bag of clothes to goodwill. I wipe the crayon off the window, finally. I clean out the fridge.
Then the preschooler gets sick, so for a few days I’m too preoccupied with her to get anything done, and am too emotionally drained to do anything in the evening. Once she is better, I look outside and realize our yard has become a jungle amidst the perfectly manicured lawns of my neighbors. Adult peer pressure overwhelms me and I devote an afternoon to weeding and mowing. I start to imagine how nice it would be if there was a flowering tree here or a nice shrub there.
I make a trip to the store for garden seeds and come home with three new fledgling trees. Then it rains for three days and I worry about getting them in the ground soon. As soon as there is a break, I spend another afternoon digging a hole for the first one. The kids help and we have fun. Afterward, everyone is coated in mud, but I don’t mind because childhood, right?
The next day I drink my coffee and look at the window at my lovely new tree. When I’m done admiring our work, my attention returns to the house.
Any progress toward my spring cleaning goals has vanished. There are muddy shoes all over the front rug, and the back hallway is coated in dirt from mud the dogs tracked in during the rainy week which has now dried to a fine dust coating the hall and bathroom near the back door. There is a new pile of laundry to be folded and a new layer of dust on everything from the floor to the ceiling. New fingerprints on windows, and a new pile of end-of-the-school-year papers stacked on top of my to-do list. New weeds are sprouting up in the yard and it needs to be mowed again.
I start again, first with decluttering and then sweeping, mopping, dusting. Before I’ve gone very far, it’s time to stop and make lunch. In the hour I’ve spent working on things, the kids have destroyed the living room so I add that to my to-do list.
I’m fooling myself if I think this list will ever be done. For every thing I check off it, I add five things to it. Not exactly an encouraging realization.
And yet, this morning as I wipe the mud-dust from the hallway and scrub the floor yet again, I don’t feel discouraged or frustrated. I just feel grateful.
Our yard doesn’t look perfect, but it’s perfect for playing fetch with our dogs or making mud pies. This year we will plant trees and a garden and get to watch them both grow.
Our house isn’t spotless but it’s where we can kick off our muddy shoes and splash in a bubble bath after we plant a tree together. There’s dust but there are also art projects and dance parties. There are piles of laundry but there are snuggles and books and great big imaginations and love.
So I open the window and I light the candle and I scrub the floor knowing that it will be dirty again by the end of the day. I may enjoy the few moments where everything feels tidy and fresh, but it’s this messy crazy life with these little people that I truly love.
The list will never get done, and that’s okay. Because the truth is, loving them will always be first on my to-do list. And I’ll never be done with that.