I have an easy commute. Going to work is never a problem. No traffic, no apps to tell me the fastest route; I am lucky. Really.

Today I took the usual 5 steps from my backdoor down into the garden and around to the yellow door of my studio, a renovated garage. Even though it is a short distance, it is crammed with remnants of over 26 years of life. Rusted paint cans, sieves and buckets for when I had water flood into the garage, old bicycle helmets with the padding chewed away by mice and weather. It has been on my Spring Cleaning List since day one. I’m hoping I tackle this Spring. Now. Like next week?

After 26 years what flipped the switch?

The scent.

As I left the studio today I had two little paintings to photograph. The smell of the jasmine my neighbor planted on our shared fence was hard to ignore. It overpowered my disarray and I thought about my neighbor Joan who died a few years back. How she loved her garden and would spend hours in it “tidying up.” I felt her presence working in the garden as I worked in my studio. The bees would visit Joan and her scented jasmine and then find their way to my studio circling above my pots of melting beeswax. It was a comfort.

Every so often I would hear her sing song call: “You who…Francesca…“. We shared many stories from the back door; the usual neighborhood stuff but more importantly the listening to each other when we needed an ear.

As I said the scent stopped me in my tracks. I propped my two little paintings on some old roofing wood and sat on the backdoor steps. How lovely. That’s something Joan would say.

Decisions can come from making a pro and con list, or getting advice from friends, or doing research.

The best decisions come from the heart. Really.

As they used to say in my yoga classes, “Time to dust off the mulahs and shine.”

Wishing you a Spring Cleaning from the heart.

XOXO,

Francesca