Spring is the time of new life. Wonder sprouting everywhere! Cleaning out the old to make room for the new is vital. In our house that means pulling out furniture from the walls, cleaning in places hidden by winter’s accumulation, dusting ceiling corners and getting rid of “stuff” in drawers and cabinets and pantries.
Mother taught me (and her mother before her) that anything can be cleaned with vinegar or soda. Surfaces cleaned with vinegar-water dry quickly and leave bacteria no place to grow. Soda can take out stains, sweeten any place mold might have grown and scour away stains.
It’s time, too, for what Bill’s Aunt Lillie used to call “riddin’ out.” Magazines, catalogs, newspapers and boxes saved for “someday” need to be taken to recycling centers. Extra flower pots, glass vases, and “fancy” jars can be put in some charity’s yard sale. Half-burned candles, silk flowers, extra dish towels, blankets, sheets and towels can find new uses at women’s shelters and missions where folks are trying to put together a life after tragedy or house fires.
Once the spaces of our lives are clean and neat, spring can happen even before the flowers are in full bloom. Spring colors in bedspreads, couch pillows, towels, dish towels, tablecloths and candles can turn a winter room to spring in no time and with minimal expense. Wicker baskets spray-painted white, yellow, pink or robin egg blue, then filled with clumps of silk daffodils, tulips or dogwood can accent a dining table, fireplace mantel or bedside stand. Colorful brightly-enameled metal gardening containers filled with forsythia and pussywillows adds spring sparkle to an outdoor entry or porch.
There are five senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. I like to think of these as five roads into the center city of our souls, so I try to use as many of these roads as I can when I decorate.
A bowl of lemons appeals to the eye and the taste buds. A small fountain brings the sight and sound of a spring stream. Textures of soft pussywillow, a ragged piece of rock or shell, a container of sand, the smooth surface of polished stone or a piece of lace or other fabric entices the hand to touch. And music; don’t forget the music of spring. My favorite is Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and I love to have it playing in my clean, spring-sprinkled house when the family comes for dinner.
Soon I will add symbols of Easter and resurrection: a ceramic rabbit and her bunnies by the back door, a flowered straw hat over the fireplace, a soft lamb among the daybed pillows, some fuzzy chicks on the “children’s shelf,” a straw nest with five blue eggs by the flowers and candles on the kitchen island.
The extended family will gather here after everyone has changed from church clothes on Easter Sunday to watch the children search the hillside and creek bank for hidden eggs. Even the big kids love this family tradition. The rocking chairs on the porch will be lined with grown-ups taking pictures and cheering them on. (Our rule is that nothing low or on the ground may be “found” by the older children, but be left for the little ones.)
One of my favorite times of the whole year is the early morning hiding the eggs. I have them filled with prizes and ready to go the day before, but early morning hours are my private time. Watching the sun rise, hearing the ducks and geese and swans stirring and conversing on the pond, listening for the happy song of morning birds, I make my way to every corner of our property placing eggs where the children will find the most delight in the discovery. This is my personal sunrise service.
Finished, finally, with my mission, I sit for a moment on the old bench by the pond and think of that first Easter morning when the women made their way to the place where their Lord had been laid three days before. I listen for the voice in my own soul that declares to me that there is no death here; He is alive. He speaks. And I, too, say “My Lord, and my God!”
