With our “here a week, gone a week” schedule lately, I’ve really neglected the house. With an eye toward weekend visits from friends, I call one of the local maid agencies and ask for help.
Dawn arrives with mops, buckets, and brooms in hand. After a brief tour (“Nice pool,” she murmurs), she descends on the master bathroom. One indication of how far I’ve let things go is her first question: “So, how long were you guys gone?”
While I work on The Idea Deck (a Tarot just for brainstorming), Dawn makes the rounds. She’s good, moving furniture, lifting rugs, and even wiping down each one of the forty-nine cabinet doors in our kitchen. As she works, she discovers little things and brings them back to show me:
“You guys get a snow globe every little place you go, don’t you?”
“You two must travel all the time. You must really like it. In every picture I see of you, you guys are smiling.”
“Okay, so far, I’ve found two cats and a dog. How many pets you got, exactly?”
Hours pass. I mark Dawn’s progress by the receeding sounds of her work — the closer she gets to the finish line, the farther she gets from the office. Six hours after starting, she wanders back, beaming. “Come see how I did!”
She did great. She vacuumed the couches, swept out every little corner, mopped the floors, oil soaped the parquet floors, wiped down the appliances, and generally made the entire place shine again.
After she leaves with a check for the service and a tip for herself, I realize Dawn’s done more than mop and sweep — she’s restored the balance of energy in the house. I wander from room to room, breathing in the clean.
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