Spring Cleaning

In the opening scene of Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows, the Mole has "been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home."

And I imagine that, ever since we gave up a nomadic life, we, like the Mole, reach a point where we must clear out the last of winter and welcome spring by opening doors and windows and cleaning
"[f]irst with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs . . . ." The Mole even gets out his whitewashing brush to freshen up his walls.

As the Mole cleans, he feels rather than observes "Spring . . . moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing." Grahame captures the heart of the matter: When the seasons turn, winter to spring, summer to fall, the Mole and the rest of us feel uneasy about the change but know that we have our own part in it.

Small wonder, then, that the Mole "suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat."

The Mole knows, just as we know, that we are happier experiencing spring than doing the spring cleaning. So I'm with him when his snout comes out into the sunlight and he finds himself "rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow."