It’s that time of the year when I come alive the most, and that means I prepare like its a new year, before the frozen embrace of winter sets us in place. I feel a flurry of energy to take stock of my yarn and fabric, go through my wardrobe to declutter, up cycle, and repair. I organize, I dream, I plan home improvement projects for those slow, hunker down days. I don’t feel this way at all in the Spring, I feel worn down by the winter icy, and dry air. I feel the weight of the garden, on my shoulders, and the desire to be outside again and sketch on the porch. The last thing I want to do is re-organize my house and clean. So is it the cadence of the four seasons that brings this rhythm of preparation to fall? Is is our fixation on the academic calendar? I’m not sure. It has been a time tested fixture of human culture. Forever, we have been preparing for winter, harvesting, hunting, and making.
So why, is it called Spring Cleaning? Surely Fall Cleaning would make more sense. I found that it is an ancient and modern phenomenon. The earliest mentions of a “spring cleaning tradition” are found in two west Asian cultures – Persian and ancient Israel. Iranian culture celebrates Persian New Year, Nowruz, on the first day of Spring. To recognize the new year, Iranians prepare by “shaking the house” a thorough clean, or “redd up” as my Western Pennsylvania culture would say. This makes a ton of sense to me. Honestly, I wish our modern New Year wasn’t in January, for my climate dictates the New Year kicks off during the coldest month! Not a time to do anything really other than waiting for the snow storms and negative Fahrenheit temps to pass. It makes for quite a boring holiday. The latter should have been obvious to me, growing up in the church, but I did not connect the two that Passover preparation could be the origin. During Passover, all things made with leavening or fermentation were removed to remember the Israelite flight from Egypt.
For a more modern origin, coal based heating systems would prompt a cleaning ritual in North America, to open up the windows and clear the soot. Honestly, quite a lame origin story, but important. I think a house down the road is burning coal in an burner, and I absolutely despise the stench of it. The smoke is thick and dark, permeating the air in the cold pockets of January’s bitter wind.
My fall cleaning, I’d say has a lot more in common with Nowruz than Passover or cleaning away soot. I love the description of shaking the house, it reminds me of how my Papa would describe my Grandma’s penchant for order, “She’s mean on clean.” As a child, I had no appreciation of her passion for cleaning, now as adult with my own spaces to keep tidy, a good straight up of the house brings me joy. I’ve been tackling the ever-present chaos of my craft room. It began with a sort through of my inventory, organizing it all into banker boxes and a new drawer set from Amazon to keep the fabric folded and yarn skeins arranged by fiber and weight. I can actually find what I need, when I need it, for the first time in my sewing and knitting life! Who knew a few boxes could be life changing? Organizing my stuff the way my mind processes it, well it has cut down on distractions. My easily distracted Neurodivergent brain used to find everything in my tornado of a closet, but the project I was looking for. It made everything take longer than normal, a simple search, an odyssey of investigation and forgetfulness. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I rode this high into my closet, going through it all and organizing more, t-shirts by color family, mixing up my storage solutions from hangers, to zipper bins, to planning shelves to make there be a flow. Putting clothes away can turn into a series of doom piles, because the system was badly designed by me. I needed a way to keep the organization going, while I sorted and folded my clothes, yet again a bad plan led to me sorting through a random drawer for the third time that month, instead of putting the rest of the laundry away. It was a waste of time, leaving me frustrated once again at my squirrel brain. A flow to getting dressed, and a choreographed dance of freshly laundered clothes waltzing into their places once again. But why stop there? Less to organize would be ideal. Thus began a lovely fall purge of clothing into piles – donate, up cycle, repair, and trash/scraps. All the clothes, shoes too! I feel so empowered. I have struggled to part with anything since experiencing grief and trauma in the 2020’s, and it has been embarrassing. I will live with too much stuff, wanting to re-home it, yet being unable to part with it, in some guilt that I don’t understand. I think the burden of my mind is fading, with healthy clarity returning to my heart. I’m not saying goodbye, over and over again, I am being a good steward of things, and sometimes that means you have to let things go. Even my handmade items that may not serve me, but could make someone else happy.
With a clearer mind, I feel inspired to create. This comes ever fall, with a flurry of ideas for new sweaters, accessories, and clothing. This year is a special one as I have been making pants, from scratch and from up-cycled materials. I will be fine tuning my cold weather accessories too, with plans to make excellent hats, mittens, and socks. I’d also like to make a bag or two. My sweater plans are more focused this year. I understand how to make the thing now, so how can I make them better? I guess I shook the house of my creativity too, in this clean.
Do you feel motivated in fall to get things done? Are you a fall cleaner or a traditional spring cleaner?
