I was excited for May Day this year. In Britain, May Day is a public holiday and I have fond memories of watching girls skip around the maypole, weaving in and out with colourful ribbons, and Morris Men jingling their bells and clacking their sticks and waving white handkerchiefs in the air. I grew up a few narrow winding green lanes from the village of Ansty, rumoured to have the tallest maypole in the UK. I even danced around this legendary maypole as a child, continuing a tradition dating from the 16th century, maybe even earlier.
I wanted to see if I could find a May Day celebration of this kind in Seattle. Not the other kind of May Day mischief Seattle is notorious for. I was searching for a maypole and Morris Men rather than demonstrators and placards. Was I feeling homesick? Probably. Did I want to share my history with my girls? Undoubtedly. The Fremont Arts Council, the group responsible for the Solstice Parade, was hosting a celebration at Woodland Park. All I needed now were white dresses for the girls and flowers for their hair.
The celebration started with some fun games for the kids. L was quick to embrace the activities and before I had even spread the picnic blanket she was climbing into a burlap potato bag for the sack race. She was unperturbed by the game host with his exaggerated British accent, white smock, red tights and curly mustache. He was a lovely blend of Shakespeare and Kitchener. Morris Men were next up. Who'd have thought, Morris Men in Seattle and they weren't too bad. Face painting lured the girls away from the curious jumping and jingling men and soon I was holding hands with an excited bunny and a wiggly fish. We decided it was time to retreat to the safety of the picnic blanket for our supper of hummus and pita while the May Queen was crowned and the men waited in a bawdy crowd. Drumming resonated through the trees and my little bunny was unable to sit still. Drawn to her feet by the rhythmic beat she hopped and jumped and twirled in absolute freedom. The Queen selected her King and the May Pole grew larger and larger in the center of the field, tangled ribbons of all colours flowing from it's crown (yes, literally, there was a crown atop it's um, head).
This was all becoming very sexual and feeling uncomfortably more licentious from the more innocent festivals of my youth. Oh, the symbolism was there if you knew where to look for it. May Day is after all a celebration of Spring and long ago these rites were practised to ensure fertility of crops, animals and humans. However, the May Queen is a young girl dressed in white, pleased as hell she was chosen but shy to be the center of the village attention. Here the May Queen was of a fertile age and the possible Kings were gyrating their hips to the primal drumming. Was the maypole always intended to be such a phallic object I wondered as I watched the Seattle one grow out of the ground. When I drive past the one at home in the UK I think of the beautiful tall tree it once was.
Even though I was half tempted to whisk my girls away in scandalous indignation, I knew I had to see it through. The maypole dancing was beckoning and I wanted to see where this US version was going. Lilli and I each took hold of a ribbon and with Amelia on my hip we danced around the maypole as one. Under, over, under, over. With each undulation a new face would appear. The ribbons grew shorter pulling the 100 or so dancers in tighter to the maypole and tighter together. Every once in a while Lilli and I would become separated for a second or two. Panicked I would call her name and her worried face would break into a relieved and excited grin. What did Amelia make of this? Bouncing on my hip, strangers faces much too close for comfort. And how much longer would this last? My arm was aching, the girls needed to get home to bed and I was done. Was that a half-hour maypole weave? When the ribbons were chest high, Lilli passed hers to me and ran around and around the maypole, with her hand high in the air strumming the lattice of ribbons above her head. The King and Queen were caught in the middle, wrapped to the pole in ribbons. The crowd gathered towards them, hands in the air, ululating. OK, time to go home. This was becoming too weird for me. I think I'll catch my next May Day celebration back in the UK.
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