May Day

---

A Balboa Park rose, 2010.

---

Himself: Swam, laundry, cooking, hunted for jobs, Costco, took Lessa patches. “All in all, a good day.” Then this morning, G notes that the ad for the job has been taken down. He's encouraged. Herself: Rode along with G when he went to Costco and Lessa’s, read and slept. Blogs of delight: Here's a Brit in Tennessee to delight you with his green fields and marvelous flowers.

This spring day, May 1, is a good excuse for several holidays. In many countries it is Labor Day and an official public holiday. Remember the films showing massed USSR troops and missiles moving by the Kremlin? For those of Wiccan or Celtic persuasion, it’s Beltane as well as the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. As Europe became Christian, these festivals were replaced by other spring holidays such as Easter.

A Wikipedia article on May Day tells us, “The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman Goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. A more secular version of May Day continues to be observed in Europe and America. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the Maypole and crowning of the Queen of the May.”

Among my few childhood memories, is one of my mother showing me how to make small, construction paper woven baskets. I filled them first with grass then with bits of flowers from the gardens, and, first thing in the morning, I took a few around to the neighbor’s front doors. I wonder what the little old ladies across the street thought on opening their doors that one May Day morning? I marvel at the innocence of thought, of the gift. I wonder at the clear thoughts in the mind of that little girl.


In Balboa Park one sees more low water border plantings and less grassy areas.