The Maid
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C. 1
“What am I looking for? This is my room, but why am I standing at the window?” She asks.
“You died, Brigid dear.” her ancestors reply.
“Died? Nooo. I’m too young – I just started.”
“Yes, he shot you darling”.
This tale of tragedy occurred in Southern California. A pragmatic scientific approach would not understand or even accept, this tale, but it’s true.
Yes, real events, though somewhat extra-real. In writing this I realized I became a scribe for her. She took possession of my hand and its #2 pencil and wrote. Some call this the muse. I became to know her as Brigid, the maid. And now she told me her story. Though she was killed ninety years ago, she entered my awareness as fresh as if conversing today. These historical notes are not dead facts but rather breathing realities.
P. S. and reader, some parts of this historic tale, a tale that I experienced a few years ago, will challenge your beliefs, your understanding of life. But all parts are truly true.
C. 2
2000
City sounds echoed around the courtyard’s stone walls. Inside the mansion, stone silence. Decades of storms darkened the limestone walls of Greensurf mansion, its windows, dark, streaked, vacant. Grey slate roof tiles gathered the winter rains which drained into green copper gutters and then out through the mouths of demented stone gargoyles. All the while trees grew, roses died, fountains dried, vines covered those stone walls, moss grew in the cracks of the dry fountains, and inside dust covered the floors while spiders spun their crouched webs in the crystal chandeliers. Earth rotated; weather fluctuated from rain to sun to rain for many years. Yet she waited.
C. 3
That realm beyond this life follows different laws.
2005
“For a hundred years her grave, neglected and unknown, lay in the basement of the mansion.”
This is the opening at my seminar: ‘Expanding your scope, a study on reaching beyond the obvious’. As architectural historians, our duty, responsibility even, is to research, question, investigate, and interview history’s structures, to reach beyond the obvious. I invite you to walk with me into this other awareness, to this vast expanse of understanding. How did I discover her grave? Through research into unlikely sources, and…”, pausing I scan the attentive audience, “with a lot of guidance from an unexpected source. Questions are okay at any time. Yes mam, at table five.
“I’ve learned much from your previous books on ‘Research and listening to the past’ as you describe it, will you present and share additional methods today, Professor?” she asked.
Yes. I don’t know anything special, I follow unanswered questions such as who, what, where, when, how, and why, and listen. This seminar is focused on how we can improve our services by asking these questions and it presents a tale of the depths possible with tenacity along with the invaluable guidance of a muse.
Dig deep, don’t’ assume. If you are not curious, don’t question, or reject the unexpected, you and your clients will miss out – of amazing experiences. Our clients and readers care about the stories we unearth. This, umm… shall we say experience, broadened me. I thought I understood, but I realize now the past is not the past until it says so.
The example of our building investigation and research is Greensurf Mansion, and its curator for the city of Beverly Hills, where the mansion is located, is Dr. Jennifer Stewart. I anticipated admiring its designs, size, beauty, and craftsmanship yet did not anticipate being captured by century-old residents who remained.