#25 Share
May 8th, 2008 by doing better
On May morning I got up at five a.m. and went into town to welcome in the spring with singing and dancing. I had had enough of Morris dancers in other years, so this year I watched some green people who played wonderful folk music with instruments resembling giant bladders. They had green unwashed hair and green faces and clothes; even their children were green. Their leader, however, wore a motley coat and a top hat, and his face was half black and half white. He was eager for the crowd to love him. To this end he made declarations such as, “The security guards tried to stop us from setting up here this morning, but we piss in the face of mediocrity! YEAH!” and “We’re going to exercise our right to democracy and not go to work today, right? YEAH!”
The green ladies and children frolicked in the middle of the crowd while the band played on the steps. One of the green men passed around a plate of grapes to the ordinary people, but he did not offer any to me. The crowd was ecstatic when a leafy tree came into our midst and began dancing with the green ladies.
For the last dance, one of the green ladies put on a backpack which was attached to a maypole that rose over her head. The motley man invited sixteen people to come forward and take ribbons. I was one of those who went forward. I took a pink ribbon near the top of the pole and began untangling it. When I got to the end, I discovered that one of the green people had given the other end to a bearded man, but I ignored him and kept the ribbon for myself. I did not apologize. My thoughts were something along the lines of, “Survival of the fittest.”
Then the music started. They counted us off into ones and twos. The ones went clockwise, and the twos went counterclockwise. We were supposed to weave under and over one another to create a pleasing pattern of ribbons. We were also supposed to skip and dance in time to the music.
This dancing and weaving act was a shambles. We rushed around the maypole woman, ducking and dodging out of the way of cutthroat ribbons. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bearded man whom I had dispossessed, but I was careful not to make eye contact. It was great fun, and I almost forgot about the hordes of people watching us. I hurried as fast as I could because I did not want to be the last one left with a bit of ribbon, running around and around the maypole by myself.
At about eight o’clock in the morning, as I was riding my bike home, I made a terrible discovery. I passed a man who bore a strong resemblance to the one whose ribbon I had assimilated. He had the same red beard, jeans and denim jacket. He was alone, stumbling and shuffling along the street, carrying a stick such as people use when they have trouble walking.
Lord have mercy! I had deprived a disabled person of his May Day entertainment. That is as bad as taking the ribbon from a child. The only thing worse would have been if I had seized the ribbon from a disabled child. What kind of shocking karma will catch up with me for that?
Sleep-deprived and lonely, having returned to an ordinary day after a morning with joyful green people, I berated myself for hours. This is why our mothers send us to preschool: so we will learn to share. Obviously I never learned my lesson. I should have been held back in pre-kindergarten and not allowed to progress to elementary school. I pored over my photos of the maypole woman with the ribbons wound around her. In the background, the red-bearded man is smiling. He does not have a stick with him. Is it the same man?
That is not the point! The point is that I welcomed in the spring with grasping ambition and callous disregard for my neighbor, who wished to take simple joy in winding a string around a pole. That was all he wanted, and I denied him.
