March is Mushy

Late last summer, with the help of my family, I cleaned and sanded a collection of goose-neck gourds that a friend had grown, dried, and gifted to us. In a long-awaited, clearly-envisioned project, I painted each gourd a different bright color with chalk paint and strung them up as a garland on my covered patio. When they first were hung, they were beautiful. The chalk paint tones were perfectly muted and earthy, the splash of color against the boring wood of the patio structure, the way the sun lit them up in the late afternoon, especially as the season turned and everything became brown and dismal once again, they supplied the needed color in the fading summer, our rainbow of hope as the bleakness of winter set in. I could see them from my bedroom window and for many months they brought me tremendous joy.

Well, now it’s March, and those gourds look awful. All the paint has chipped off and is flaked all over the patio surface. One of the gourds fell off and I haven’t bothered to pick it up because I’m lazy. They make the whole backyard–which is just mud and junk right now–look even more neglected. There is something acceptable about a yard that is mud, dead garden, bikes that have sat abandoned all winter, a rabbit hutch without its sunflower border, that is a NATURAL ugly, a SEASONAL ugly. But adding in the forgotten, ruined patio decorations on top of the organic level and flavor of grossness, it’s just too much. I am that house.

You might think I’m joking, but I’ve posted before about my friendly relationship with our city code enforcer, because he visits us NOT INFREQUENTLY to tell us all we are doing wrong. I’m equally glad and humiliated every time he stops by. I expect him any day now because of our sad bad yard.

The sad bad yard is a window into my March Soul. Everything feels soggy inside me. It’s all dim and foggy. Gone is the warm cozy glow of winter in my heart, and here is the anxiety that doesn’t know how to dress for my day, that doesn’t remember when I’m supposed to plant what vegetables, that realizes I forgot to water my greenhouse herbs for the past three months and now they are dead. The sunlight that is coming into my house now feels a little bit life-giving, but at the same time, it’s highlighting the layers of dirt and grime and winter germs that have been accumulating since Halloween. Rays of light are luring dust bunnies from their hiding places, their little grey heads come peeking out from under the couch, from behind the toy baskets. They are gross. They fill me with overwhelm. They outnumber me.

And the floors that were white eight years ago are a permanent grey and scuffed past the point of “quaint” or “rustic” to where they just look like I don’t clean. Ever. EXCEPT I DO CLEAN. I SPEND HALF MY LIFE MOPPING THOSE CURSED FLOORS.

Every year in March I want to walk away from my house and all of my possessions and never go back. Every year I want a reason to start over. Maybe a meteor could hit the place. Maybe that lovely code enforcer could condemn it. Maybe it will be the victim of a blessed accident while we are away–a SINKHOLE, perhaps. Maybe we can be playing in the yard one day with all of our children and pets and beloved stuffed animals, when suddenly–GULP–the earth will open up its jaws and swallow down my dilapidated little cottage. We will stand in shock and wonder, and then we will break out in song for our newfound freedom.

Remember last year when the workers next door hit the gas line and we didn’t know the fate of our home? Ingrid’s stuffed African Wild Dog, Leo, which is her Most Beloved Possession, would have been the only regrettable thing to be lost. There was hope in those moments… we all mentioned it.

Remember the time we were moving from one house to another and the house we were leaving got robbed and we lost so much of what we owned? THAT WAS FREEDOM. (Except for the mess of the broken sliding door and the damage they did on the interior of the house that we were really trying to sell…that was just a pain.)

There’s just something tempting about being forced to start from scratch. I don’t know what other action to take in a month that feels so unworkable.

Oddly, every March, when I’m feeling tempted by acts of recklessness and destruction that would leave me void of any possessions or obligations, I also feel the intense craving to make a trip to IKEA and spend my entire tax refund on Swedish Designed Goods. Lanterns, towels, bedding, tiny lemon juicers, potholders, interesting chairs that don’t at all fit my aesthetic–it’s all calling my name! Why, oh why, am I faced with this conflict?! Eliminate ownership, or level-up my hoarder status?

We have a few days of warmth here in Indiana before the cold supposedly will be making a comeback. It’s been raining continually the past few days, till just today. We’ve had some fevers and chest gunk move through the family. Everything still feels muddy and mushy and Marchish, even with this peek of sun. I think it’s time to put on my rain coat and take down my ugly gourd garland… and then maybe just pull the curtains closed until April when my view won’t be filled with quite so much desolation and mud. Maybe the only action for March is patience.