It's been too darn cold and too darn dark for too too too long, and now the light is returning and we are ready to get busy brushing winter out of our houses.
Here in Minnesota we deal with a grimey springtime - our snowfalls are plowing events, and lots of street dirt gets tossed up onto curbs and boulevards and driveways. We use a lot of roadway salt, and that makes for a mess on our cars and in our cars and houses - my rugs and wood floors really take a beating with each thaw, and the baby toddling and touching and dropping things into the crud on the doorsteps and throw rugs spreads dirt and aggravates the sense that everything's falling apart.
We're conscious of air so dry that static electricity is our most reliable companion - across the dinner table last week, grandBaby and green grandmother laughed at one another's hair standing on end. Lint gathers everywhere. Stuff - paper, clothing, random bits of technology - seems drawn into every corner and horizontal surface. We have discovered our closets and cupboards packed full of stuff and there's nothing to wear!
We've begun clearing up small messes indoors as we prepare for the growing season. Excess baby clothes and Mama clothes and grandmother clothese have been washed and folded and packed off to St. Vinnie or Goodwill or a local Headstart that keeps a closet for mothers and children. Art and household accessories have been listed on Craigslist or ebay, and more useful items have gone to furnish apartments for handicapped adults in transition and an organic-farming Auntie. I've given my daughters some of the family keepsakes they would otherwise have been given upon my demise - it's more fun to see them baking angelfood cakes in the same pan that baked the first one they ever ate, to display the botanical prints (even the one with poisonous mushrooms) in their own living rooms and to eat off the dishes I started housekeeping with in their dining rooms than it ever was to store and periodically dust and wash infrequently used items.
We have found ourselves giving gifts like this more and more these past years, and grandBaby has heightened our awareness that time together and support for causes that mean much to us are more in keeping with our values than finding the perfect gift in a store. We like stores, but increasingly spend time and money on books or sewing or buying gardening equipment - a local nursery sells springtime flower gardens in a pot, and the hyacinths in mine are violet, blue, white and yellow - the blue muscari and red tulips that followed the crocuses have looked spectacular - because I'm not up to re-growing bulbs, we will compost my pot of bulbs - unless the squirrels eat them first.
I have been watching the parenting publications in a way I haven't done in twenty years or more, and found a great website: http://greenbabyguide.com/ This collection of blogs and columns is wonderfully heartening, as mothers and fathers share their insights and experiences raising green-aware children in families that live well while living mindfully.
Clean up the house, clean up the planet - enjoy sharing the wealth and responsibility.