Spring Cleaning? Dust Yourself Off While You're At It!

Are you feeling dusty? Yes, I said: dusty.

When I say dusty, you might hear dull, muted, staid, or uninteresting, but when my southern grandmother calls you dusty, she means raggedy child, you have work to do. Now, she doesn’t necessarily mean this as a putdown, but rather as an invitation to pull yourself up and rise again. I believe that once we shake off the detritus of last spring—that wretched spring, we can live abundantly. If you overslept and forgot the first day of spring—perhaps still recovering from spring forward, now is exactly the right time to summon your forces, renew yourself and bloom. It’s never too late to embrace a springtime mindset makeover! To that end, let me walk you through a truly dustless day, with suggested readings along the way to help you develop your plan to get there.

8 am

Do you fancy yourself the kind of sophisticated aesthete who spends a leisurely post-teatime afternoon sketching botanicals on your luxe lawn?

I hate to break it to you, but that's not you. Not yet. We have a lot to do today, so get up early! You heard me: grab a sketch pad, some colored pencils, and walk thyself to the nearest garden before everybody and their dog gets there. Now is the time of tranquility in the urban jungle. But, not so fast! Don't forget to bring Botanical Drawing in Color: A Basic Guide to Mastering Realistic Form and Naturalistic Color by Wendy Hollender. This collection of tutorials and tips will have you illustrating as if you apprenticed under Pierre Jean François Turpin.

11 am

How convenient that the spring equinox began on a Saturday. The Brooklyn Greenmarkets are open to satisfy all of your seasonal cuisine needs. This time of year, we start seeing the first harvest of produce other than apples and tubers to fill our totes. So you get home with this edible, exotic spring thing and then give it side-eye and declare, "Ok, so how exactly do I cook it?" Don't worry. Laura Sorkin is here to save your savory soul. With a photo-rich A to Z guide to perfectly prepare almost any vegetable, Vegetables: The Ultimate Cookbook will turn your greenmarket bounty into a plate of pure delight.

3 pm

Bravo! You enjoyed your fancy brunch. So, let's contemplate life…and your living space. You've been staring at those four walls, six if you're lucky, for more than a year now. What comes to mind? Ok, forget it, that was torture. My apologies; I want to take us deeper and get to the heart of the home. I know you've been hoarding Amazon hauls and collecting craft supplies. I won't judge, but I think you can do better—Marie Kondo does too, but we are ignoring her. We are going back to the guru who inspired her: Nagisa Tatsumi is the original Japanese minimalist master. Her meditations on simple domesticity in The Art of Discarding: How to Get Rid of Clutter and Find Joy will clear a path to a practical place in your mind. Now to clean your physical space, let’s say no to Kondo. I like her philosophy, but I know you want to fold things the way you want to fold them. The solution is Organized Enough: The Anti-Perfectionist's Guide to Getting-and Staying-Organized by Amanda Sullivan. The title says it all. Let's get it together our way.

7 pm

I'm proud of you! You didn’t clean and declutter all 200 sq. feet. That’s okay, you are off to an excellent start. Treat yourself for all that you've accomplished today. Please take one of those wild things you bought at the greenmarket earlier and turn it into one of the beauty recipes in Amy Galper's Plant-powered Beauty: The Essential Guide to Using Natural Ingredients for Health, Wellness, and Personal Care. I'm sure there is a mask, scrub, or bath concoction that will make you feel pretty and pampered using what's in your pantry. Go forth and self-care. And happy Spring!

---

LaCresha Neal is Welcome Services Coordinator at the Central Library. She loves art, altruism, and information.