Spring Cleaning

Hellllooooo March 2021!
I am in my bedroom listening to the wind bluster around Moscow. I live in a little cluster of tin apartments. The wind and rain of a good storm can make me feel like I will blow away into a vibrant wash of water. It feels like the rain and wind will take me somewhere. It is thrilling in the way an intense storm can be. Rain on tin is a sound that echo’s my childhood home. I always adored the drizzle of rain on my tin roof, at my parents’ house. Living in a building wrapped up entirely with tin makes me feel like a little creature who lives in a soup can. I can almost picture a little ladybug hunkering down in a soup can, during a down pour of rain. I imagine it animated like a children’s book, which is basically how I feel about the season of spring. Every little green thing I love about this time of year reminds me of something my Nan would read to me in an illustrated book. Happy memories of spring!
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We are finally in the season of defrosting! My seasonal depression melts off of me with every day of sunshine this month brings. There is always a day in March every year where I lift my face towards the sun and feel genuine warmth, after the long winter. March is my favorite reminder every year, that things can get better. Seasons change, and the earth brightens with every blooming crocus. I am sitting on a stool in my tiny apartment, by a window that is overlooking the metal stairs of the complex. Dull Christmas lights still adorn the metal railing. I am still reminded how different things can be in a year. I went out to my parents’ house alone, for the first time in a while, today. It was heavy with grief and memories, and bright with the familiarity of my home during spring. I stayed a while. I ran my hand over piles of things that won’t matter to me in the upcoming months of moving and cleaning. I opened doors that had scribbles of my height from 20 years ago, and glitter that clung to the walls- as a sign of my girlhood. I walked through my childhood home and could almost imagine everyone I love moving through the kitchen to the living room. I felt genuinely sad and hopeful that someday another girl will have the best childhood in that old house. If she ends up in my room, I hope she cracks her window during storms, and knows how lucky she is. I can imagine all the laughter and love I felt within those walls becoming a part of someone else’s “growing up”. I feel a spark of joy knowing someone else will love that big old house on top of the old schoolhouse hill. As I walked through the house, I wrote my name in every pile of dust I found, which is a bad habit that I will hold for the rest of my life. If I walk by dust, or condensation on windows, LIBBY will be scribbled on with my pointer finger. If I ever committed a crime the most solid evidence in the case would be that I probably found dust nearby to write my name. Look for it, but don’t frame me, please ;).
I have always said my old house lacked ghosts. The house was built over a hundred years ago, and once served as a rest stop for funeral homes. I briefly talked about this in a previous blog. We have evidence of this history with eye caps and embalming fluid bottles that my mom has funly (not sure that’s the right word?) layed out in a cabinet for display. Very cool, very creepy. I always felt like the house I grew up in had great ghost potential! I just never got that creepy experience. Obviously, I am joking about wishing I had more ghost moments, because I lack any capacity to be chill. I would not like it one bit. But it was always an ongoing joke. I don’t think my house has ghosts, but it does have lingering feelings, that take the shape of people I have loved. I walk through every room in the house and think of who I am. I think of my family, and moments that stick out after being tucked away for so long. It is beautiful to see ghosts of my life sprinkled in every room. When I say ghosts, I just mean I can feel those good moments all over again. I will hold onto that for now.

-Libby (imagine I spelled it out in dust)


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