Shaking the House

Five things I’m doing in January—for home, mind, spirit, and future

Resolutions and I run hot and cold. Some years I’m into them, some years I’m meh. But on Monday, right before the end of 2024, I woke up with a ferocious urge to enter the new year feeling organized, on top of things, and like I really had my shit together.

In control.

That’s what resolutions are ultimately about, aren’t they? When some aspect of our life has gone off the rails, or when we simply recognize some greater potential within ourselves, we assign a goal. If you can put yourself back on track, you can control the outcome of your day, then your year, and then your entire life. Right?

(LOL. If only it were that simple!)

Still, I found myself writing out five small tasks to complete by the end of this month:

1. Wash and disinfect all my makeup brushes (yes, one is supposed to do this weekly, but let's be honest, I don't).

2. Gather the items I most dread compiling for our annual tax returns—the receipts, records, emails—and organize them into files that will make sense to me in another month or two, so the whole enterprise feels less daunting.

3. Deal with a few indoor and patio plants that are looking sad. Repot, fertilize, or replant altogether.

4. Check the contents of and refresh our disaster kit. Make sure we have all the things we need, throw out the expired food, etc. (PS, if you live anywhere prone to natural disasters—hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, and the like—here is a good list to reference for your own kit.)

5. Descale our hot water kettle, which has not been done in…at least two years.

Am I spring cleaning? I must be spring cleaning.

All my tasks—the little things nagging at me and which will drive me insane if I leave them to March or beyond—are in service of the household. I poked around Google and learned that, unsurprisingly, spring cleaning has ancient origins and exists in cultures everywhere, both during the season of its namesake as well as in the dead of winter. My favorite origin story suggests spring cleaning originated in the Persian new year, where the holiday is preceded by a ritual called khaneh tekani, which means “shaking the house.”

Maybe that’s what this new year is to me. The shaking of the house.