Spring Cleaning

I was born in the Spring. I feel at my best  this time of year. Maybe the two facts are not related, but I tend to think that they are.  I have an affinity to everything green, I love trees, wild flowers, rolling in the grass-I spend hours doing just that with the kids, rolling with arms stretched up, seeing a succession of blue and green as the sky and grass flash in front of our eyes as we roll. I love the tiny buds on the edges of the branches, pulsing with life and promise. Blossoming cherry and almond trees take my breath away. Ask any driver who has had the misfortune of having me driving in front and slowing down suddenly to take in those wondrous feats of nature, elegant shapely fruit trees preparing to be flower girls in nature’s big fat wedding day.

I love Spring. The energy, you can feel it throbbing under your feet, in the bird songs, in the intense color of the sky, in clouds competing in a bizarre fashion show above our heads, in the lake finally calming down to receive a fresh cool influx of Alpine water, its own prozac fresh from the summits, made with care in Switzerland, meticulous orderly clean Switzerland. Spring is beautiful in this country. Even more beautiful than the pristine winter, the melancholic fall, and the musical, touristy summer. Spring is THE season for this part of the world. Mainly because of the stretched out, cold, damp, dark winter that precedes it. Nothing can offset the down feeling we all develop along with nature over the long winter months like the sudden advent of a bright spring day. It feels like nature is recovering from a particularly difficult PMS episode and turning calm, rational, giving, loving, beautiful. We forgive her her trespasses, but we don’t particularly forget them. We know it’s a cycle, and we know there will be more irrationality to come, but we enjoy our time basking in her warm sun, smelling the fresh grass and flowers, feeling the cool breeze on our face as we walk briskly in the morning with the last remnants of the winter cold stubbornly hanging on to the morning mist. We feel nature in the Spring, it is everywhere. It is mother earth with all its might, its energy, its power of rebirth, its cycle of life, and the feeling of wonder as we dream of a fruitful yield that is just around the corner.

In celebration of the beauty of spring, people spring clean. They honor the season by removing all traces of harshness of the winter that is departing. We clean our dark, obscure corners, closets, drawers, attics, we remove decay and clutter, we open our shutters wide, we smell the freshness of the air, and we let the light and the air in. Into our lives, homes, and most importantly minds and hearts. We spring clean, because we need to. Because after the dark, there should be light. This is the cycle as the powers that be intended it. The night and day of our lives, and we are lucky to experience them when we can. In so many other countries, the concept of Spring is non-existent. In tropical countries, in equatorial climes, deserts, in parts of the world where everyday is similar to the next with the exception of the monsoon season where it rains significantly more. I am a mediterranean dweller, where our seasons, much like in Switzerland, are well-defined. Predictable. I like that fact. I like to know that I can count on four seasons coming in reassuring succession. And most of all, I like the start of Spring, to comfort me that there is always light after dark, sun after night, fresh after damp, truth after lies, right after wrong, life after death, warm after cold, and a rebirth I can expect year after year. Our survival is distilled into our Spring, our rebirth, our life pumped into dead branches covered with snow for long, devoid of life.

Let us all clean our life’s closets and dark corners of the remnants of our long cold winters. Let in the sun, let it purify our minds and our hearts. Let go of anger, hate, dishonesty, fake existence and just embrace what nature gave you, your life, your soul, your ability to be reborn every year. Happy cleaning, it’s Spring time.