I Love Spring

Spring, for some strange reason, always brings out the de-clutterer in me. Both inside and outside our home will find me ruthlessly de-junking in the spring. From dead wood to dead coats, there is something about the spring that makes me long for that clean fresh feeling of spring to find it's way into even the darkest closets, the furthest reaches of the yard and the deepest recesses of my mind.

Nine years ago, when we moved here from our home in Utah, I spent an entire year casting off ten years of accumulation and clutter. It was a great feeling to remove things that we were not using or that had outlived their usefulness and yet, when we finally moved it still felt like we had more stuff than we needed. This spring, as I look around, it seems that way again. Modern living is generally cluttered living. This is partly due, I believe, to the poor quality of goods made readily available in every store. It is easy to buy something cheap these days and difficult to get rid of things that don't work or you don't really need. 

Cluttered living is habit forming, I think. Once you have acquired something, it sort of takes hold of you and it can be extremely difficult to let go of it, no matter how inconvenient it might become. If the clutter happens to be a gift, then its hold is even more tenacious and getting rid of it can be almost impossible. I once read that clutter, (loosely defined as things in your life that have not been used in the last year or things that have outlived their usefulness), is not just a benign pile of stuff but in fact it can become a serious drain on your life's energy. Every time you look at a pile of 'stuff' that is not being used but is taking up space, your mind tries to work on that pile. Maybe you think about what should be done with it, why you haven't done it, reasons why you might want to keep it, where you might put it instead, etc. Negative energy was what it was called. The clutter sucks energy from your life by sitting there waiting for a solution. I have seen homes where the clutter has literally taken over the life of the house. Used and useful articles are relegated to tiny slices of space that have to be wrested away from the grasp of the clutter. Like a monster parasite taking over it's host, these homes are unlivable, to say nothing of the people who live with it. 

On the other hand, I have noticed with children as well as myself, that whenever a room has been cleaned, we invariably are drawn to that room and begin creating something, playing something or working on something in it. The room acts like a magnet for creativity and finds immediate use. Laughter, joy and creative energy fairly bubble out of the room, making it and everyone involved in it feel more alive. 

Clutter is not merely a question of things but also of people and feelings. For instance, people can carry mountains of emotional clutter around with them. Grudges, past hurts, failures, wrongs, grievances, illnesses and troubles can be carried into every conversation and every relationship. The more you carry with you, the more difficult it is for any useful or happy interaction to occur. The emotional clutter brings with it the addiction of self-pity and the loss of hope. Creativity becomes something to regret instead of something to reach for. Other people succeed, other people are happy, other people are healthy, but the cluttered person is held captive by his clutter.

Spring makes me feel like letting go. It makes me want to remove both physical and emotional clutter. As I stood in my yard this week and watched while a pile of dead branches burn, I felt strangely liberated. I watched the wood turn to ash and smoke and literally to disappear and it seemed like magic! My yard had been cluttered with these branches for many months. Now they were gone and it felt so much like freedom that I wanted to sing! At the same time, because it felt like the right thing to do, I mentally dropped some emotional clutter into that fire and watched it go up in smoke. It felt so good that I spent the rest of the day looking for more things to burn. I do love spring.