Mary / Martha

I’ve got an empty plate today; a bite or two of leftovers but nothing that adds up to a meal. I’m awaiting divine magnification of my supply. I’m looking through the scraps for meaning. I’m avoiding personal industry. It’s Sunday, after all.

The lushest year with all the rain, the longest day, yesterday, so much need for accomplishment, so little interest I feel in moving my body. I keep finding myself staring into the layers of clouds. If I gaze into them deeply enough, a switch will be flipped inside me and all the bits will come together with meaning. The tension in my chest will subside, or so it feels.

On the Mary/Martha scale of how we attend to life, I’ve always tipped a bit toward the Mary side. As I’ve grown older, in spite of all the obvious need for activity, I place increased weight on the Mary way. What I wish I could do is hire a flotilla of Martha’s. Then all would be perfect. My plate would be full in every way.

The raccoon stole my heavy glass pie plate from the front porch. It’s the cat’s dish and the raccoon checks it twice a day for leftovers. Yesterday morning I discovered it all the way across the lawn by the edge of the hill and I perceived her intention. Bemused, but not forward thinking, I simply brought it back to its accustomed station. I should have siliconed it to the concrete. Today it’s gone.

I picture her sly, intrepid, mothering little body dragging that dish home to her babies, putting it in place, staring at it expectantly from time to time, waiting for the magic. I imagine her disgust and disappointment when it remained stolidly empty. She was set to have a dreamy risk-free summer playing with the kids, getting out of the business of nursing, everybody snacking when they felt like it. It was a stellar plan but she was operating on a flawed premise.

I may well be also. I gather flowers from the overgrown garden where they’ve burst magnificently above the pigweed in spite of my total neglect. I place them on the kitchen table where I can feast on them tomorrow when it will be Monday; a long solstice Monday where I’ll have to get back to the business of business and content my Maryish heart, my raccoon heart, with brief glimpses of beauty while I forage for food.