Farewell Maggie

 

I'm beginning to realize that I cannot take a 'mental health day break' from writing.

It seems that when I do, my writing will eek out into mini novellas on social media reposts or, as in the case of today's post, I'll plan a post and then when I write it, it goes off the rails into a direction that I wasn't expecting.

Like all of the different issues flying around in my head seem to become relevant to things they shouldn't be, and find their way into unrelated post themes.

Today, I started writing about 70's advertising due to talking to MyMan about products we remember from our childhoods. Bayer Aspirin in the metal box. Colgate toothpaste in the metal tube. Noxzema in the blue glass tub.

A few days ago, someone posted an old ad for Underoos, and by the time I finished writing and was ready to start editing, I had segued from Wonder Woman all the way into the loss of women's rights in today's society after making pit stops at Bratz dolls, perception due to appearance, and Roe V Wade.

So much for a fun, throwback, GenX love post.

Plans changed, clearly. Maybe I can talk Madge into a manicure and try again tomorrow.

Before I was sent off the rails of Madison Avenue's machinations, I was notified that Maggie Smith died.

So maybe it went off the rails so I could write this post instead.

Maggie Smith has been in my life since I was five years old.

The picture above is from a movie named Murder By Death that was released in 1976. My parents went to the drive in theater in Union, NJ to watch it. Their two children, aged five and one, were in the back seat. I was the five year old.

It was also so long ago that car seats weren't a thing. I have no idea where my infant sister was, but I was dead center of the back seat watching the movie with rapt attention. Every few minutes my mother would look over her shoulder expecting to find me asleep, but not a chance. I was awake as awake gets and paying full attention.

In the evening gown above, with her English accent, and regal demeanor; Maggie was my first 'Movie Star'. Other people heard movie star and thought Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor. I thought Maggie.

In the many years since, no matter where I found her, she was always my Movie Star. She even managed to be one when she was wearing a wimple and correcting Whoopi Goldberg as a nun. Twice.

I don't know many people who didn't want a Hogwarts letter, but the biggest part of my wanting to get my letter was the possibility of running across Maggie's Professor McGonagall with her feisty, protective, and always upright self. 

Her crown may have been invisible, but it was always there.

Ms. Maggie,

Thank you, Ma'am. *curtsey*