May Day!

Does anyone else remember May Day? Your doorbell would ring and when you opened the door, no one was there. But a May basket was. Candy, maybe a small toy, something home-baked, flowers. The last time I remember May Day celebrated in this fashion I was preschool age, living in Ray, North Dakota. The memory is like vapor. Hazy and without detail. Bits and pieces come into focus. The house we lived in, a two story duplex with a mostly dirt yard. Some raggedy zinnias near the concrete front stoop. Mom hated zinnias, but they were hardy, they would tolerate the hot, dry summers. It was like they bloomed to aggravate her. I remember sitting on that concrete stoop, buffetted by the relentless prairie wind, convinced that I could be carried off by it if I weighed any less. This year May Day falls between two Sundays of greater celebration, Easter and Mother's Day. It has already been on my mind that this upcoming Mother's Day is the first one since my own mother's death. I am saddened by this but at the same time grateful for the fact that I, too am a mother. Tomorrow morning I'll turn up the calendars and remember anonymous gifts from long ago on the doorstep. And consider the Celtic celebration Beltane that falls on May 1st, the pagan holiday of fertility that renews the bonds between the Mother Earth Goddess and the fire god Belanos. Seems like a good time to plant flowers. Maybe some zinnias.