Have you ever danced round a maypole?

Nope. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t even know this was a thing until my kids ended up in a school where they celebrate this. They hold a whole spring event that includes a maypole dance.

Does the month of May hold any specific memories or events for you?

It’s my daughter’s birthday month so that’s a pretty big deal. It’s also graduation month here so lots of my transition memories are tied to May.

Does your country celebrate a May Day holiday?

I’d say not really. It’s apparently a thing in the U.S. but I’m guessing different areas place different importance on it. It isn’t a national holiday like in some other countries.

Because I’m that girl I googled and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has articles discussing May Day. Here’s one part that jumped out at me. If you’re interested follow this link to learn more.

“For wealthy reformers [who were concerned “workers, exhausted as they were from factory work and the stresses of urban life, would fall victim to the cheap commercial amusements of the day…that did little to educate the mind or instill ‘traditional’ American values”], the solution was to give workers more opportunities for wholesome play, particularly play that was steeped in the nation’s white Anglo-Saxon past. May Day, after languishing in the background of the American psyche for centuries, stood out as an ideal candidate for a revival. The resurgence of May Day traditions began in the 1870s on women’s college campuses, where the children of wealthy families donned white outfits, danced traditional folk dances and, in many cases, performed dramatic retellings of the story of Thomas Morton and his doomed maypole. To popularize May Day among the masses, wealthy reformers also introduced the traditions of “a-maying” to American schoolchildren. Generations of students in public and private schools, many of whom came from immigrant families, were taught to gather flowers and dance around the maypole on the first of May.”

Whoa buddy. That’s a lot.

Have you booked a vacation for this year?

We planned a vacation abroad for the beginning of November. I have concerns that travel may get weird for Americans but BrightSide thinks everything will settle down. I guess we’ll see.

Gratitude:

A random stretch of cooler days this week, duck boots for rainy days, and the birds finally found my window feeder. Now if I can just lure back the hummingbirds…

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