Ever the Mary, Trying for Martha

This past summer, I was visiting one of my sisters-in-law and asking her to help me implement her streamlining and organizing techniques on my own house. I was poised with my notebook, ready for tips. Without pause, she said, "Oh, but you are a Mary and I don't think you should try to change." She is referring to Jesus' friends, two women who had very different approaches to the home, or entertaining in the home. Jesus favored Mary, she wanted to visit with folks, let the appetizers wait. This, while her sister, Martha, was fussing in the kitchen and mad that her sister wouldn't help her out.

I wanted to see this as a compliment but I know my own tendencies toward stagnation and laziness and am deeply afraid that my beautiful, stone, Turn of the Century- Germantown stead will become Sanford and Son's. Reconnecting with one of my college roomies is a daily reminder of how I behaved in college-for better or worse: I remember my room in Holland Hall, piles of papers, stacks of modern poetry and books on the apostle Paul, my beloved French press, baskets and bins of clothing, several pairs of wooden clogs that could send you to the ER if you tripped on them. And if you could find it, my sturdy little word processor that my Dad got me at Boscov's. All this to say, I thrive on chaos or what my British design book would graciously describe as "busily charming" or "lived-in appeal." I am a collector and I like to be visually stimulated by my possessions.

And yet, I am not content to be this way. I am married to a man who buys a pair of shoes and then feels the need to get rid of one. He returns his fork and knife to the same position after each meal. I admire the simplicity of his drinking a glass of water and then rinsing it, drying it and returning it to the cupboard. I am SO not like this.

I want to make my mark on this house and really deliberately choose the paint color, invest in fairly-traded rugs, have "well-appointed furniture." For now, it is me and my little green label maker, enforcing a place for everything. It is our thrifted leather Chesterfield sofas with Maxine's scratch-marks. It is me trying to decide if the molasses teething biscuit is still clean after the third drop, it is day-to-day living, it is following kindergarteners around wearing swiffer sheets under my shoes.

I think I will have to rest in this struggle for now. I will have to accept my post as Mary, enjoying the company of her loved ones, listening to their tales, attentive to their adventures and dreams. The other stuff will have to wait.