Cleaning up is not a task limited to or initiated by a season in my experience. Spring Cleaning, however, seems to be inscribed in some corner of a rural chromosome or perhaps immersed in the sacramental memory of baptism. The first day of spring arrives, and an impulse to engage in obligatory and repetitive gestures of cleansing begin to surface. I’m good at suppressing those urges until early summer, but this maddening March weather changed everything.
The tin roof on the country kitchen had outlived its usefulness. Built shortly after the end of the Civil War, it sagged like an old feather mattress over the antique stove and the assorted relics of forgotten sinners stored in the kitchen. (Note the Glasgow whiskey bottle and a packing box of explosives held by Libby and Melissa.) This structure had been built to keep the cook and the heat in the kitchen, out of the main house. Now it serves as a collection site for whatever was left over by whoever left it behind. It is a perfect staging ground for a conversation about “bricolage: a limited, heterogeneous repertoire of inherited bits and pieces.”(Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind)
The clearing/cleaning of this building was at the bottom of a long list of salvific action. It shot to the top when the replacement tarp gave way. My hope for a leisurely Antique Roadshow adventure was soaked under a torrent of melted snow. A call for help brought neighbors. Spring cleaning became a communal act of salvation and cleansing. “O my God,” was the constant refrain, but it was uttered with a wide range of tone and expression. “What is it?” was usually answered with a “Better save it,” and even the old joke about Prince Albert in a can held a great sense of timing.
Of course, a new roof and sunny weather doesn’t solve the problem of what to do with the stuff that’s now drying out on the porch. But it’s only the first day of spring. I have until June 21, the first day of summer, to sort that out.