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May Day this year was spectacular and beautiful and badly needed.

The weather was absolutely perfect: a deep blue sky with only a very occasional wisp of cloud, with a slight breeze and pleasant temperature.

One of the things that needs to be gauged carefully each year is when to show up. Show up too late, and it is impossible to find space on the curb to watch the parade. Show up too early, and it can be a very long time to wait (with no convenient porta-potties nearby). This year, I judged it perfectly. The parade started at 12:00 noon, but I had picked my spot and was seated in the shade by 10:30 a.m. Some years, I have been content with a blanket on the curb, but this year, given the problem I've been having with my hips, I decided to bring a foldable camp chair, an excellent decision, and I was entirely comfortable.

I brought a mini picnic for myself and my reading tablet, and spent part of my time reading and part of it watching the crowd. Bicycles and unicycles zipped back and forth, and entrepreneurial vendors trundled wheeled carts past the gathering crowd, selling food and drinks, pinwheels, and balloons. Eventually, people in costumes started drifting by: an elderly couple dressed in silk robes, carrying walking staffs hung with ribbons and crystals, a tuba player striding quickly on his way to join a band at the parade starting place, dressed in a colorful costume with sunblowers stitched to his trousers. I saw a man in a gorgeously sequinned dress skate by on rollerblades.

Eventually, both sides of the street swelled with a huge, excited crowd, and the parade began, an extraordinary explosion of color. All the floats were human-powered, and all the parade participants were brimming with joy, calling out to the onlookers, "Happy May Day!" Women dressed in fluttering chiffon, silks, feather boas, and ribbons carried poles mounted with papier-mache bees, teasing the children in the crowd, lowering the poles so that the bees 'gathered nectar" from the flowers they wore in their hair. Bicycles tricked out with cardboard painted as colorful alebrijes, fire horses, dragons, and beetles streamed by. A float representing a snow plow named "Abolish Ice" pushed cardboard federal ICE cars ahead of it with its shovel. A huge loon towered over the crowd, flapping its wings. Aztec dancers danced down the street (some of them did the entire parade barefoot), shaking jingle belts and tamborines, beating drums, and smudging the crowd with clouds of burning sage. Several bands marched by in motley costumes, and the Southside Battle Train revved up the crowd, led by a Tyrannosaurus rex that cheerfully snapped its jaws at the crowd. A newly married couple marched by, accompanied by cheering friends and family, carrying a banner introducing them to the onlookers. Hari Krishna adherents, chanting, a huge trans flag carried by people of all ages, people dressed up as locusts and whistles and lotus flowers, members of a boxing gym, representatives of the postal union, protesting against ICE, and more.

When the parade had passed by, the crowd gathered their chairs and blankets and streamed into Powderhorn Park. After the usual couple of hours' delay, the Ceremony was held at the edge of Blanket Hill, culminating in the rowing of the Sun across the lake to raise the Tree of Life on the shore.

A small group of friends gathered in the spot where we have assembled for years. To my delight, Fiona, Alona, and M were there. M grinned and chortled and flirted with everyone and did her dogged best to eat every speck of dirt around herself as far as her little arms could reach, a wreath of flowers in her hair.

A perfect May Day and a perfect day.

Background: a perfectly blue sky. Upper Right: A woman in a hat and sunglasses (Peg) smiles at the camera. A sign just below her face reads "L♥ve wins." The End. Upper left: an Aztec dancer in full regalia. Center: A loon rampant spreads its wings. In front and slightly to the left of the loon: the May Day Sun. Lower portion: The May Day Tree of Life spreads its arms wide, upheld by a crowd dressed in red.

May Day



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