The days are getting longer. The skies are growing bluer. The sun is shining brighter. Time to muck out those dark corners of the mind, vanquish the cobwebs, let in the light. And the joy.

According to the Whirlpool Corporation, “Spring cleaning is an annual deep cleaning tradition that allows you to get a fresh start for the upcoming season.” Who knew that a home appliance company would nail it so precisely, or wax philosophical? Or have a blog?!

 So, let’s get on with it. We’ve got LIVING to do!

Clean Out the Cobwebs   

First, absolve yourself of all guilt regarding the 100 things you meant to do over the winter, the past year, the last decade, but for various reasons haven’t yet gotten around to. They’ll keep, LOL. 

Seriously, though, how many things can you do at a time? One. How many things can you conceive of doing in that time? Zillions. For the sake of your own sanity, know your priorities—the activities and people who matter most to you—then do what you can as best you can. And move on. The greatest time-waster in life is beating yourself up for what you haven’t (yet) accomplished.

Forgive yourself, too, for whatever mistakes you feel you’ve made. Doing X when you should have done Y. Taking Job A when you think you might have been happier in Job B. Failing to look before you leaped. Case in point: I recently ordered a series of theatre tickets for our upcoming jaunt to London. Using a ticket sales site that’s worked well for me over the years, I later discovered I could have gotten a better deal on several plays by going directly to the theatre’s website. The difference for the four plays involved totaled close to $200. Bummer. But now I know, and for the remaining plays I booked, I compared prices and got the best deals. Okay, lesson learned. No need to beat myself over it. Just move on.         

Mend Fences and Make a Fresh Start

Had a falling out with a friend or family member? Now’s the time to mend fences. Yes, you may get rebuffed—ouch—but the chances are good that the other person has been fretting over the rift, too, wanting to make things right but fearing rejection. My guess is your overture will be greeted warmly by a very relieved pal or relative. And if not, then it’s down to that person. You will have done your best.      

If there’s a dear friend you’ve been out of touch with for a while just because life gets soooo crazy-busy, give them a call. Now. Ten to one, they’ll be truly happy to hear from you. A friend you’ve had for 10, 20, 50 years? They are precious. Don’t wait.     

Clear the Decks and Create Space for What You Love   

I don’t know about you, but I get around 2,000 emails a day. Yes, each day. Much of it truly good stuff. Petitions to sign. Letters to my senators and reps, both state and national. Support for environmental concerns, civil rights, healthcare, public education, the rule of law, voting rights, animal welfare (to name but a few) and the groups that champion these essential causes. Like I said, all good things, but I struggled to keep up last year. Reading every message left me scant time for any other kind of reading and squeezed the hours available for working on my current novel. Or house and garden projects. Playing my guitar. Or just goofing off. Daily, I wistfully recalled the peaceful pre-MAGA years of Obama when the emails—and the threats to our democracy—were far, far fewer. When I had time to write, time to relax with friends and family. Time, period.

Solution: Now I deal with about half that load, mostly while watching All in with Chris Hayes, and allow myself to simply mass-dump the rest for that day. I mean, how many times do I need to petition my House and Senate members to get rid of Pete Hegseth? Surely, 3-4 times a week will do.     

If you can’t entirely offload an onerous or time-eating task, at least develop a plan to lighten that load. Make room for what is most important and let joy play a major role in that choice.  

Let Light into the Dark Corners

Anxiety about the present. Fear for the future. It’s a scary time out there. Even the folks who say they don’t want to know, they know (which is why they’re trying so hard to shut out what’s happening).           

Instead of fretting—which changes nothing and raises your blood pressure—turn those worries into action. Sign up to help with voter registration drives. Volunteer to make phone calls and/or write postcards to voters for candidates who champion democracy and civil rights, healthcare and public education. In 2020, I was one of over 40,000 volunteers who donated time and effort to getting Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock elected to the U.S. Senate. I wrote 300 postcards to voters telling them how Ossoff and Warnock would strive to make their lives better and asking for their vote. Just three lines per postcard. They both won. It felt GREAT! [With the all-important 2026 midterm elections in mind, I’ve appended a list of links to volunteer ops like this at the end of the post. Check it out.]

Another way to banish the blues? Get up on your feet and into the street! The recent No Kings protest held in over 3,300 locations across the country was the largest single-day action ever in U.S. history. More than 8 million Americans gathered to say NO! to Dictator Don and the fascists. Joining in such demonstrations both conquers fear and changes outcomes. We would never have gotten the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965 if millions of ordinary Americans had not taken to the streets—again and again—to say ALL of us are human beings, deserving of full rights and freedoms.

Open the Windows Wide and Bask in the Serenity   

The idea of this post began back in early March. After a spectacularly harsh winter—banks of snow five feet high, roads and walkways that more nearly resembled an ice rink, our democracy dangling by a thread, the threat of world war in the wings—the temperature suddenly shot up to a sunny 60 degrees. The next day, it topped 70! The ice and snow melted.  Oh, what a difference a day can make. I was out for a walk, basking in this welcome reprieve from the dark and cold, when it came to me: I want a saner life. And on the heels of that, the realization: I (and only I) can give that to myself. One cannot change the times one lives in—though we can each take actions to create a better, more humane world—but we can choose what to keep and what to let go of. What we want to spend our hours, our days, and ultimately our lives doing. What will give us the joy and strength to stay the course whatever comes.

Volunteer Opportunities to Turn Out the Vote in 2026

https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/  Progressive turnout project: Postcards to Swing StatesScroll down to Program 2 “Get Out the Vote”  (starts May 26)

https://www.lwv.org/about-us/membership-local-leagues    Our vote is our power. Through our votes, elections make our voices heard. The League protects and empowers millions of voters every year to ensure that our elections are fair, accessible, and representative of all Americans

https://postcardstovoters.org/   Postcards to Voters are friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast. Sign up and they’ll send you an email with instructions. 

https://www.activateamerica.vote/   Scroll down the page until you see Impact Key Races/Reach Out to Voters for info on postcard writing and phone-banking opportunities.

https://www.fairfight.com/   Scroll down the page and learn about Fair Fight’s work, then click on Become a Volunteer, which takes you to a page where you can choose how you’d like to help elect pro-democracy candidates.