03/26/2019
Happy spring time New Englanders! When the first day of spring hit last week, I felt an almost biological desire to be enjoying the sunshine and moving around. This included cleaning.
Many of my clients come to me for help in the air of spring cleaning. This got me thinking, why is spring almost like a probe to initiate the behavior of order and cleanliness.
Is it a culture thing, an American thing a consumer thing, a female thing, a age thing? I had a million questions.
Geographically early settlers in New England came from Western Europe. Generally speaking western Europeans experienced all four seasons. During the cold winter months, wooden fires, and stoves were the main source of heat before central air came to the rescue (thank you Willis Carrier).
When spring time came around for our great great great great (great?) ancestors, it was almost necessary to open the shutters and haul through their homes and offices clearing the air and surfaces of any soot, or winter clutter. This tradition like most other traditions, is becoming a waning process through modernization and access like most things in 2019, but yet we still toss around the idea of spring cleaning.
If I were to make a T list, comparing then and now, not only would my elementary school teachers be proud, but I would find a HUGE difference in lifestyle. For starters, the lack of time, increase in foot traffic, use, consumption, and all things consumer oriented facilitate how we are able to juggle the demands of the 21st century. So why are we still using spring cleaning as our only time to play catch up with seasonal build up?
Happy spring time New Englanders! When the first day of spring hit last week, I felt an almost biological desire to be enjoying the sunshine and moving around.