May Day Celebrations

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On Saturday, May 3, I celebrated May Day with back-to-back-to-back activities. The day began with sunshine, warmth, and my morning Heritage Walk in Calgary's Tuxedo Park -- my first time leading a Jane's Walk. Forty-three people turned up at our meeting spot in Balmoral Circus Park, which conveniently provided chairs for half of the attendees. 

After my introduction and a discussion of the intersection's history and recent transformation into a park, we set off to explore the other historical sites in the neighbourhood that I had chosen for the setting of my mystery novel, A Killer Whisky. 

The whole walk took 1.5 hours. Highlights included unexpected contributions by walk participants. A woman who grew up in the neighbourhood recalled that the house in the above photo used to be a Scout Hall. She rang the home's doorbell to see if the owners could confirm this. They said they were newcomers but would contact the previous owners and send her more information. 

At our next stop, a surprise for me was a "Sold" sign in front of the blue house in this picture. 

A few weeks earlier, when I'd researched the walk, no sign was there. I had imagined this 1912 house as the residence of my novel's protagonist. A woman in the walking group Googled the real estate listing and found the description boasted that the home was featured in a Jane's Walk. During my research trip, I'd dropped a flyer in the mailbox advising the owners about the upcoming walk. Evidently their real estate agent viewed this as a selling point. 

Between my morning and afternoon walks, I grabbed a burger and fries at a nearby local landmark, Peter's Drive In. After lunch, I repeated my Jane's Walk for 40 new participants. The afternoon walk featured three guest speakers. 

The first speaker was planned. In front of the 1912 commercial building that once housed a branch of the Calgary Public Library, author and literary historian Shaun Hunter spoke about Elaine Catley, a Canadian writer who lived in Tuxedo Park in the 1920s. 

The two other speakers were spontaneous additions. When we discovered an urban planner from the City of Calgary was in the audience, we asked her explain about Heritage Protection laws, which I wasn't familiar with.  

Asia Walker, Urban Planner, and Shaun Hunter added interest and expertise   

Later, a woman who'd gone to Balmoral Bungalow School shared her memories of attending the school that was built to temporarily house students during Calgary's periods of rapid school enrollment. The school is boarded up now, although an application has been made to make it a daycare centre.  

Balmoral Bungalow School 

From the walk, I drove to the Austrian Canadian Cultural Centre for a dinner/dance to celebrate May Day and the Centre's 70th anniversary. May Day, the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, welcomes the summer growing season with the traditional Maypole dance. 

During the day, groups from Western Canada had gathered at the Centre for workshops on Schuhplattler dancing. My sister's German dance club came from Victoria and dressed in dirndl and Lederhosen for the occasion.  

After the workshop presentations, the band continued with polkas. I was tired from my busy day, but couldn't resist hitting the dance floor when the band segued to Elvis' "Blue Suede Shoes." By midnight, I was ready to crash in our hotel room. 

What a fun way to usher in summer. Happy Merry Month of May to you! 

Alphorn players

      

Bringing in the May--in PA

A Love Story for Spring

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May Day is on her way—in fact, as this post goes live, I’ll be in the hills of PA at camp bringing in the day with fellow congregants.

This is the first big get-together for those of us who are just visitors to the site, the some-time pilgrims. Of course, there are folks who live at the sanctuary year round, serving the organization with hard work, both sweat and detail and are sworn to poverty. They alone witness the white sleep, the deep mud, and the green rebirth, the dry leaves, the storms and rushing waters of the Everything She Touches She Changes Creek, the focal site of the camp.  The wards of the church live with the privileges and hardships of the place, which are entangled.

Some of the pilgrims to the place are old. Some are young. 

The kids are all right! They have cool shoes that light up and neat costumes to wear and know all about Harry the Young Wizard or Gimli the Dwarf as well as Spiderman and Black Panther and Ponies.  Sometimes they have two mommies or two daddies or just a single weary parent, trying to keep up with them. The small ones will cry, grumble and yell inside the bunk house after the old and decrepit are already in bed, wrapped in sleeping bags on futons and concentrating on their muscle aches, or curled up tight hoping to warm their feet. Eventually, all the fresh air and camp excitement, the chill of the night and exhaustion from running through the long grass (kites, sparklers, noisy drones) overcomes them, and the small “replacements” will also pass into unconsciousness.

At night there will always be motion here and there, or a ritual which requires fires, flowers, smokes, and rum. Flames bloom and crackle at new-created campsites, headlamps jiggle through the dark, potty doors bang, bats twitter in the twilight. At night there is some wandering, romance for those so inclined, long philosophical discussions in a tent under party lights with cold cups of coffee or other, more Dionysian beverages at hand. 

You may take a long lonely walk through the hilltop labyrinth and then watch the sky. There are also 2 a.m. trips to the outhouse through the dew laden grass made by the elders. These latter are hoping not to trip and fall, but they are also known for pausing in order to gratefully survey the dark-dark night sky and rejoice at the sight of blazing stars that have been invisible in their light polluted home towns for decades. 

In the morning the women braid wreaths from tubs of donated flowers. Maidens and children will wear them too, as well as the May Queen. Already the ribbons and flowers have been plaited into the great wreath, the one which will be ceremonially raised to the top of the pole. A little sympathetic magic never hurt anyone, especially on behalf of our poor beleaguered planet. 

The dance, an ancient practice from another continent, will take place in the afternoon, when, usually, to our great delight, the chary spring sun comes through clouds and warms us. Shirts and shoes will come off in the humid meadow and the celebrants will enact the rite of pole and wreath, and the young men will struggle (laughter, jokes) with the rising. At last the dance of under-over-under-over will begin, braiding the bright ribbons.  Everyone in that circle will soon be sweating and breathless, dizzy from glancing up at the pole, at the swaying wreath and ribbons. 

Around us this year, the trees will be barely leafed, and the blue sky will come and go through low clouds.  Drumming will provoke showers. Elders will look on, visiting, and congratulating one another because they are still witnesses to life—Winter has “spared them over for another year.”  

~Juliet Waldron

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