Spring cleaning isn't what it used to be. Once, it included purging stacks of mail, receipts and documents, but most of that is digital now. Our paperwork, so to speak, never really gets cleaned out. Traces of what we bought, what caught our interest, what we photographed and more seem to hang around indefinitely. While it's depressing to think that my 2011 email for the Mountasia Groupon code will forever remain in a kind of electronic purgatory, forgetting to clean up our more sensitive information is much more concerning. It seems that one way or another, Santa Clarita's secrets come to light.

Santa Clarita has exactly one nice, vibey coffee shop, and I visit it to stay apprised of what people I can't stand are talking about. Some questions are perennial ("How's little McKennleighy-Jheanne doing in fourth grade?"), while others come and go. We're currently in "Got any fun trips planned?" season. The correct answer is to sound excited while simultaneously downplaying a summer trip that will cripple your family financially. While I listen to people dream about getting out of town, though, I am reminded that to others, Santa Clarita is the destination. And it can be tourist season here year-round.

Look through your phone and you'll notice a rhythm to life in Santa Clarita. This time of year, you take photos of hikes at Placerita Canyon. Summer means slideshows from graduations or from trips to such exotic beach locales as Santa Monica and Ventura. And soon enough, the holidays come around, marked by a spike in cheerful, emoji-filled texts to people you don't speak to the rest of the year. It takes a literal force of nature to disrupt this cycle, but that's exactly what happened in January. Suddenly, there was only one thing to think about, and we're going to be dealing with it for a long time to come.

Santa Clarita turned 37 years old at the end of 2025. It's a throwaway, smack in the middle of life, definitely not a milestone kind of age. In a press release acknowledging the anniversary, City Manager Ken Striplin mentioned the SCV's many nice parks, some new artwork that should vaguely resemble an LED river and promised "top-notch customer service" for residents. But between yawns, attentive readers noticed a big number: $342 million. The city's annual budget now stands at over a third of a billion dollars, roughly the down payment on a new Valencia home. It's a big number, and citywide, we're rolling into
2025 with plenty more.

In 2013, English retailer John Lewis unleashed a weapon of mass emotional devastation. Their annual Christmas advert, as it's known, featured animation of a thoughtful, lonely rabbit gently coaxing its best friend, a depressed hibernating bear, from its cave to a woodland Christmas. The journey is long, backed by Lily Allen's heart-wrenching version of a Keane song: "'Cause this could be the end of everything, so why don't we go, somewhere only we know..." The lyrics capture that bittersweet sentiment of longing for shared memories and places from our past. Obviously, don't watch it right before you take the family holiday photo. But it is worth taking a quiet moment to think about memories of home in Santa Clarita. Can we still go somewhere only we know?

Daylight savings time will end in the wee hours of November 3. The grand tradition of cheating an extra hour of sleep from the universe, however, may be going increasingly unnoticed. No one watches the news any more, which could always be counted on to remind us to "fall back" one hour. Phones and cars update automatically. The closest thing we have to a community square clock - the one at the corner of Soledad and Whites Canyon - is digital, so it won't spend much time equivocating. It's all too easy for the time change to become invisible as we awaken mysteriously better rested. It's worth considering what else might be more invisible than it ought.

Evolutionary psychologists sometimes explain modern-day anxiety as a consequence of ghost lions. Over the millennia, humans who were anxious about a rustle in the bushes, whether from a real lion or just the wind, survived longer. Their kids had the same heightened vigilance. So modern-day people literally might be bred for a certain amount of dread and paranoia even when there are no lions to be found. It has paid to think about what could sneak up on us. As we enter October and all the haunted houses, ghost stories and horror movies it has in store, it may be wiser to face our fears than run from them.

For me, the end of summer in Santa Clarita wasn't marked by Labor Day, but by the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church Annual BBQ.

To keep an eye on the pulse of Santa Clarita, one must, at least occasionally, visit the r/SantaClarita subreddit. It skews liberal, male, Millennial-ish and mildly conspiratorial. Some of its top posts of all time make fun of SCV Karens or warn about an apparent skinwalker demon on "Serria" Highway. Lately, though, there's been a focus on how expensive things are. Someone complains about alleged gastrointestinal issues from $14 strawberries at the farmers market. Another talks high HOA fees. Yet another bemoans the new Six Flags surcharge on food. Even Redditors, who aren't famous for leaving their homes, are noticing that nothing in Santa Clarita is free these days.

One of the best parts about living in Santa Clarita is that no one expects it to be the best. Everything is pretty good, but there's usually something better; we're the Kirkland Signature of SoCal living. This takes an immense amount of pressure off us. Without sky-high expectations, Claritans and visitors alike can take real pleasure when they do find the occasional amazing restaurant or stunning hike or fun community group. There's no shame in coming in second, and we're often in good company when we do.

Most of Santa Clarita's high school seniors will be graduating this May. The whole ceremony is full of tradition: the march to Pomp and Circumstance, gowns and tassels and speeches about reaching such an important milestone. It's comfortingly formulaic. The discomforting part comes a little after all those well-deserved celebrations. There's still a whole lot more living to do. That may be with the parents in Santa Clarita, at a dorm at some fancy East Coast college or in a first apartment somewhere exciting and new, say... Pacoima. Reaching a milestone is a graduation cliche, but it's one worth taking to heart. For all a milestone really means is a fresh new mile ahead.

Of all the great big names that permeate Santa Clarita, I submit that Clare, Newhall and Hart are each owed at least a century. Saint Clare gets the 1700s - a party of Spanish explorers named our river after her in 1769, and she's why we're Santa Clarita today. Henry Newhall gets the 1800s, for that's when he got the ball rolling on developing the valley and established his enormous legacy. William Hart gets the 1900s. The star of gritty Westerns lived here, somehow legitimizing Santa Clarita as equal parts cowboy and Hollywood. As for the 2000s, it's too early to say whose name will claim it. In the meantime, the spirit of Hart and the West remain relevant even now.

March 19 marks the first day of spring, and thereafter the days only grow longer, brighter and sunnier. The light stirs up all kinds of trouble. Sunshine reveals dust and clutter in previously dark corners of our homes. Time for spring cleaning. "It's too cold" no longer works as an excuse. Time to re-enter society. There's a quiet panic as we realize that pool days and beach trips are around the corner. Time for that Ozempic appointment. The energy seems to be contagious, because everywhere you look in Santa Clarita, it seems to be time for a change.

It's easy to feel uneasy after the holidays. There was so much time for self-reflection, questions and comparisons. Why aren't you a jet-setting, happily-married, philanthropic brain surgeon who shares funny memes with Taylor Swift? Rules help calm this panic. New Year's resolutions will make us better versions of ourselves, following rules for love will assure a great relationship for Valentine's Day and, by this time next year, everything will have come together. It may be tempting to be cynical about such optimism, but who knows? Let's think about getting this year underway with an eye on the rules.

If you're reading this, home for the holidays most likely means staying in Santa Clarita. And with 8 percent mortgage rates for the foreseeable future, it's probably going to remain home for a very long time. Everything is expensive. Inflation has slowed substantially, but prices for everything from a festive peppermint mocha to a festive holiday divorce are up. Perhaps that's why so many headlines relating to all things money have been popping up. Everyone is watching their spending as we welcome the most wonderful, most expensive, time of the year.

I'd venture that Santa Clarita has more Thanksgiving guests coming than going - a net importer, if you will. With nearly perfect November weather, a couple of nearby airports and many homes built for hosting, we've got plenty of things going for us. Unfortunately, hospitality isn't one of them. Your guests will probably be tail-gated, brake-checked, and/or flipped-off while driving to your home. We could all do with a little more civility. Keep a watchful eye on our local news and you'll see that it's full of reminders about hospitality dos and don'ts for the fall.

Santa Clarita doesn't need to wait for Halloween to have horror stories. Since the last column, there was an attempted pitchfork attack at a Home Depot. An arrest followed, and luckily, injuries weren't reported. A Valencia woman was arrested in connection with suspected human trafficking that involved her massage parlor. The very unpleasant smells from Chiquita Canyon Landfill continued long enough to prompt over 1,000 complaints from the public. Plenty of great stuff has happened over the same period - football games, community charity events and the return of pumpkin spice lattes. But there's no denying that beyond our front doors, troubling stories have unfolded.

If we set aside all the business about apparent UFO disclosure in Congress, the rancor of American politics and artificial intelligence poised to change everything, there's really not a whole lot going on in the world. Such is summer. Santa Claritans are busy doing nothing. Even the city council nixes some meetings. It's a good time for us to catch up on the goings-on in the outskirts of the Santa Clarita Valley, those out-of-the-way spots that are a little bit city and a little bit country. Where neighborhoods meet wilderness, it can be hard to tell who's pushing whom.

If you want to know who has ever seen "Midsommar," wear a flower crown for the summer solstice. The people running away are the ones who watched it. I'm not proposing grim pagan rituals for Santa Clarita this summer; far from it. But I think the film was onto something in acknowledging that people get all kinds of weird, primal, frenzied energy in this sunniest season. Even if the chaos can't be contained, at least traditions can help channel it. This is why humanity invented summer camp. As Santa Clarita settles in for a long summer, the familiar rites reappear.

At the SCV's farmers markets, it's easy to look at the mounds of vegetables and think, "Hmm, I could do that." You are wrong, especially at this time of year. Apart from some cherry tomatoes and citrus, Clarita's homeowners rarely succeed in the endeavor of urban farming. The sun annihilates life, or your dog tramples your veggies or the HOA fines you $300 for an unauthorized eggplant. Luckily, we have found other ways to feed ourselves. And with all of the summer barbecues, weddings and long lazy dinners that lie ahead, it's worth thinking about what we'll be putting into our collective stomachs.