May is all about fresh beginnings, right? It’s the time when we clean out our homes, get rid of the dust and debris, open the windows and let the sunshine in. May 1 is also May Day, or International Labour Day — the day many countries celebrate the achievement of various Labour movements; or at the very least the workers take the day off. It is also an ancient Celtic holiday called Bealtaine, the first day of Summer. And in the US, it is Loyalty Day: “a special day for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom” (Wikipedia). It was originally meant to be a counter-observance to the Labour Holiday, cause we all know the Americans were never big fans of the Communists.
As the sunshine fights to break through the clouds on this West Coast May 1st, after several long months of rain, I can’t help but think of the proverb “April showers bring May flowers.” Apparently it is originally attributed to Thomas Tusser, from his 1557 A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie — “Sweet April showers do spring May flowers.” He is also the one who brought us “A fool and his money are soon parted.” But the sense of the proverb was with us long before the 16th century. It also appears (though not with a direct reference to the month of May) in the first work of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales:
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour.
My favourite variation of that one is the opening of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with Spring rain.
The trees in Victoria are already filling out with leaves, and the flowers have been here for quite awhile. All I hope for now is that this May brings us some sunshine. I am solar-powered and Winter and Spring have taken their toll on me.
