It's a good March day (Happy St. Patrick's Day!) and the wind is roaring outside. I'm wishing Mary Poppins would ring my doorbell, step into the entry way with deliberate "can do" attitude, and volunteer to be my personal maid. She doesn't have to call me Mi Lady or anything, just be my right-hand woman for a while. At school, she could stay with the students so I could run down and retrieve copies (well, let me say WALK down the stairs because my knee still pinches) or make myself a quick cup of coffee. She could help me pass out papers while the kids read and write. Here at home she could straighten my bed side table. I just haven't had time and it's getting so piled high with books and bric-a-brac. She might be willing to clean the refrigerator. She could fill the bird feeders.
Before I went back to college to get my teaching certificate, I was a maid.
I would whip through other ladies' houses in four hours. I'd scrub their stoves, shine their showers, dust their stuff (one woman even had a harp!). I changed sheets, dusted corners, and hauled vacuum cleaners around, trying not to bang up furniture and walls. It was HARD work, but I survived. I was compelled to do a good job because they paid me but also because I knew it must feel so good to come home to a shiny house.
I do like to think about how nice it would be if I was some one's maid, watching for every little need or desire, trying to make things easier, and just being there for them. I'm reading Elizabeth Goudge's The Eliot Trilogy and when the long time maid of the main character dies, she misses her with all her heart. I feel sure that I could be the maid or the "Mi Lady" and be equally happy. You?
Now I shall find a green shirt in my ironing basket and hope that kids at school don't pinch each other.
Mags (my delightful Irish friend) suggested stew for dinner but I'm not organized enough today. We'll have fish. I'll play an Irish jig for the students or show them some lovely Ireland photos and talk about St. Patrick.
I leave you with this lovely Lisbeth Zwerger painting. Don't you love the child looking in? You have to love the white hen. What is she thinking?
Oh, life is very good. People are good. Bad things happen and people step in to serve and comfort. Be a Mary.
