May Day! Or Back When Pole Dancing Had A Different Flare

Happy first of May Day!

I always loved this day as a child.  In my home town, we didn't do the traditional dance of young girls interweaving ribbons on a pole, although I do have some vague memory of being assigned to be some flower and doing that somewhere, but we did celebrate with May baskets. I believe my mother told me about that tradition and I loved gathering up flowers or maybe they may have been pretty weeds, making little pretty paper baskets and delivering them to my definition of elderly ladies in town.  I am not certain what those ladies thought when they came upon my creations, but I do remember you had to hang them on the doorknob, knock, people didn't have that many doorbells, and run away quickly before they caught you delivering the goods. According to customs in other countries you got to kiss the giver if you caught them in the act.

Maybe this is a tradition that should be revived.  A random act of kindness before the world even had a name for it.  I think it is sad that we live in a world where doing something nice for another without expectation of thanks or reward is so unusual it has to have a name to encourage others to do it. How many of us remember a time when that was simply called the "norm".

As I wait on some final readers and edits on the manuscript I hope to publish, I realize what I want my book to do.  I hope it causes the readers to think about how they choose to treat themselves and others, but I also hope it brings joy as so many books in my own life have. Thank you authors for your skill and sacrifices to publish.

I think on this May Day I am going to see what gifts I can gather up to share with others.  Hope you find joy in doing the same.