May Day

Day 201: Of all the events I attended as a Morris dancer, May Day was possibly my favourite even though it meant getting up at 2 AM to be in Seattle to meet up with the other most stalwart members of Sound & Fury and other Morris sides from the general area. We'd gather at Gasworks Park on Lake Union, there to dance the sun into the sky, although it must be admitted that sometimes it was obscured by cloud. We never failed to achieve our goal. Then covid hit, and by the time I was willing to expose myself to other human beings, I had grown too old to make the weekly drive to practices so far away, and had to hang up my bells. Today, the team danced as usual at Gasworks, and I...well, I didn't dress for the occasion, but I did dance a wee jig with Merry indoors. This is my tribute to Morris dancers everywhere, all of you together, for your mutual contribution to ensure the Earth another circuit around the sun.

May Day Bouquet

Day 200: Sound & Fury Morris is dancing the sun up at Gasworks Park in honour of May Day, and I will have been on the road for several hours before dawn. That won't prevent the May faeries from carrying out my instructions to leave this lovely May basket on your doorstep, though. Okay, in some cases it will arrive a little early; we must make allowances as the need arises. It would seem that the practice of leaving May baskets for friends and neighbours has all but gone by the wayside, in my opinion a sad thing for such a lovely old custom to fall from use. I have fond memories from my childhood of constructing paper baskets and filling them with pretty posies, sometimes purloined from the flowerbeds of the very neighbours who were the intended recipients of the baskets. And if no cultivated blossoms were to be had, there were always dandelions and forget-me-nots and the occasional fern to brighten someone's day with a floral consideration. It was the thought behind the remembrance: you are my neighbour and my friend. Here is a gift from a simpler time, my May basket for you.