Every spring, you're told to declutter your wardrobe, your goals, your relationships, and your mindset. And if you don't feel the urge? There's a low hum of guilt that says something's wrong with you.
This week on The Scenic Route, we're asking: what if that impulse isn't wisdom, and who actually benefits from the story that your whole life needs a seasonal audit?
For many women in midlife, spring-cleaning pressure hits differently. You're already navigating a season of your own — one that doesn't come with a tidy checklist. The last thing you need is Instagram telling you to declutter your chakras, too.
We trace spring cleaning back to its roots — sacred, communal rituals in traditions around the globe — and follow how it was stripped of that context to become a personal productivity obligation. We look at who the "spring-clean your life" message lands on most heavily (and why that's not a coincidence). And we get into how self-care went from a radical political act — rooted in the work of Audre Lorde — to "buy this candle."
Plus: what my body is actually doing in spring and why the in-between, messy, not-yet-blooming feeling might not be a problem to fix.
You'll come away with:
If this made you see spring cleaning differently, share it with someone who needs permission to not optimise their way through spring.
References mentioned:
Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light (1988)
Inna Michaeli, "Self-Care: An Act of Political Warfare or a Neoliberal Trap?" (2017)
Laurie Penny, "Life-Hacks of the Poor and Aimless," The Baffler (2016)
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