Extreme Spring Cleaning
sorting out stuff, surgery, space, psyche, and Substack
COVID messed me up. Even after I stopped coughing up streaks of blood, and my senses of taste and smell slowly returned to normal, something was still not right in my head. I would sit down at my desk, intending to work, but it was hard to make words or even thoughts assemble themselves in my mind. And when I did finally have a thought, and tried to type it out, all I managed to put on the screen was a kind of dyslexic jumble of letters.
I got to work instead on a kind of spring cleaning. An epic one. And it has ended up taking the entire spring.
Spring Cleaning All The Stuff
Ever since my Irish husband and I got together nine years ago, our plan was that we would stay based in Berlin until his daughter finished school, then move to Ireland. And she is graduating in June. So. Out came everything squirrelled away, from up on our highest shelves to down in the farthest corners of our storage locker in the basement of our apartment complex. Shoeboxes of odds and ends my husband has been shuffling around Berlin for over a dozen years. Outgrown baby items I have shoved out of sight over the pandemic/toddler years. Out came the bin bags for giveaway and recycling and trash. And out came the Sharpies, the packing tape, and the moving boxes.
Now, we knew moving to Ireland was going to be tricky. It is a bad time to be looking for a place to rent in cities the world over. It’s certainly a bad time here in Berlin. But the situation in Ireland is flat-out outrageous. My husband has friends and family across the island though, and I had hope something would work out word of mouth. But he called one friend after another, and the answer was invariably, “No, no, it’s much, much worse than even the news makes it seem.”
It was hard not to be disheartened. Still, raising my son in Ireland had always been the plan, and I couldn’t just give up on it. I kept researching Irish daycare and school options for him, and visa requirements for myself. And job prospects. I signed up for online webinars and alumni events. I went through the odious task of redoing my resume, and even applied for a job in Dublin. In the meantime, my visa for Germany was expiring, so I gathered up a stack of materials, went in to the immigration authorities, applied for and eventually received a permanent resident card.
Spring Cleaning The Bodies
Aside from housing, one of the main issues dominating the Irish news has been problems with their health care system; major shortages of healthcare workers, long waits to be seen in hospitals, etc. So I was also on a mission to attend to every physical thing I could think of before we left the robust German health care system. I got my son in for checkups with his paediatrician and dentist. Took my cat to the vet. I saw my optometrist, dentist, and gynaecologist. Went to an orthopaedic specialist. Got new insoles for my very flat feet. Resumed physical therapy for the recurring back pain I’ve had since the birth of my giant baby, which the violent COVID coughing had brought back on. And, last but not least, I met with a surgeon, and made plans to finally have an operation on the meniscus I tore in my knee in 2016.
Spring Cleaning Our Space
And then, one evening in late March, I was listening to the news in the kitchen, and heard the announcement; the Irish government was lifting the ban on evictions it had put in place that winter, and as of April 1st, they were expecting nearly five-thousand evictions to go into effect at once. Now that might not sound like a big number if you’re from a large country, but it’s a lot in a small one; a small one that already has almost no vacancies, and where the “number of families in homelessness has risen by 35.5 per cent in a year.” And a lot of those evictions were so that landlords could sell off their properties, meaning those rentals would be gone for good. The situation was going to get so much worse before it got better… supposing it ever would get better.
My husband and I sat down, and admitted defeat. Maybe we would still leave Berlin. But not to opt our family into a shitshow like that.
However, moving or not, I still had my knee operation booked, and would be on crutches for an unknown number of weeks. And my son’s birthday party was coming up in the meantime. So, the spring cleaning continued. My son and I hunted cobwebs from the ceilings and corners, and moved every piece of furniture in our flat to hoover out the dust bunny warrens that had generated through the winter. We cleaned every window. We dusted. I scrubbed the tiled walls of the kitchen and bathroom. And on and on. By the time our friends showed up for cake, our flat was… well, still fantastically messy, but not mortifying.
Spring Cleaning My Psyche
And then, a few days after the last bits of wrapping paper had all been tidied up and recycled, I hopped on a train to the Netherlands. As I have mentioned before, I got the name and concept for this Substack during a mushroom ceremony I attended last summer. The anxiety and frustration and gloom that had led me there initially, and that the magical experience of the ceremony had seemed to alleviate, had come creeping back into me in the winter months since. I needed another go. New advice from the universe.
And holy moly, did I get some. Advice I had not expected, because mushrooms never do seem to give you what you expect. (But what would the point be of going on a quest if you already knew exactly what you would find?) It may take me the rest of my life to work out what to do with what I got from it, but there is one thing that feels particularly relevant for our work here at Mama Dentata.
Spring Cleaning Substack
I knew before I went to the Netherlands that part of the reason I was having a hard time engaging with my work, with Substack as a whole little ecosystem, and digital media in general, was that it required me to fill my head with so many negative things. I mean, the majority of Substacks and podcasts I subscribe to seem to be in the business of cataloguing everything they can find wrong with the world. And I really do understand that there are a lot of genuinely egregious problems at hand. But the cumulative affect of constantly focusing solely on what is perceived to be bad - to the exclusion of everything that is good - is the impression that everything everywhere is irrevocably fucked forever. And I find that a difficult mode to live in. Especially in conjunction with the post-COVID blues.
The mushroom ceremony washed all that away. I felt incredible afterwards. Like I had been to see the Wizard of Oz, and he had stuffed me with new straw. As I left, I went on my phone to find a podcast to listen to on the journey home, and found that I could not bear the idea of any of them. Couldn’t look at Twitter whatsoever. My thumb hovered, but could not find one app it seemed wise to tap open. So I went on an little bit of an unplanned digital detox for a while. I mean, I resumed compulsively checking Instagram after a couple days of course. But otherwise, I avoided the online realm to the extent I could for several weeks. I was busy enough anyhow, getting a huge list of chores and errands done before my surgery (while my son’s daycare was closed for an entire week for some kind of training, no less).
But the surgery is done. I can walk again. And it’s time to get stuck back into Mama Dentata. Which means wading back into the sea of heavy shit that comes with taking maternal responsibility seriously. But I will do my best not to let the inevitable negativity get the better of my mood or my work. I will try to make sure with each post that I’m not just whinging, but actually championing something. Try to be on the lookout for chances to celebrate what is beautiful and awesome about being a mama. And try to make sure to leave space for a sense of humour, no matter how serious the subject at hand. Because life is amazing. The fact that we women get to create new life, out of our own flesh and will, is amazing. The fact that such love as I have for my son exists, is amazing. The world is amazing - and if we have any hope of making it any better, in any way, we need to hold onto that sentiment.
This intention isn’t new of course; it was behind Mama Dentata from the start. But like every single other thing in my life this spring, it needed a bit of a scrub. I’m glad to see it polished up, and ready for some fun this summer.
Have you also been on a kick for cleaning, clearing-out, or catching up on things this spring? If so, I’d love to hear how you’ve been getting on.