It’s May 1. May Day.
The Rites of Spring. The Maypole.
The rights of workers. International Worker’s Day.
Mayday. The phonetic equivalent of the French m'aider (a short form of venez m'aider, "come [and] help me"). We’re in trouble. Save Us.
May Day Actions across the USA
What words could I write on a sign for today?
As a wordsmith who has written far too many sounds bytes to believe my own hype, I’m stumped.
Try this for one of those Burma shave sequences:
Three Little Words
We-the-people
Life-Liberty-Happiness
More-Perfect-Union
Rights-of-Women
Rights-of-Workers
Rights-of-Children
Trial-by-peers
No-means-No
Love-is-love
But why?
What words can i grind into a piece of paper until my pencil breaks? What words can I post somewhere? What words on a T-shirt?
I hold up my signs everywhere. People honk. Like. Share. Subscribe. But still.
I take a sign made by the movement and move together by the thousands in the streets. Not my words, but our words.
I wrote this on Facebook yesterday. Typical of me. Wordy. Dense. Layered. And we scroll on and on and on.
The IDEA of America *is* D.E.I.
I. Inclusion. Everyone belongs.
D. Diversity. Variety is our genius.
E. Equity. Fair shot for all.
A. America the beautiful ... dream.
The IDEA of America wasn't realized when the immigrants arrived, when Independence was declared, when the Constitution was written.
But is the IDEA of America this?
I. Ignorance. Stick to your own kind.
D. Denial. They don't belong here.
E. Exclusion. You're either with me or against me.
A. Anti-the-other. Witch hunt. Purity tests.
America is the whole enchilada - ideals and shadows. Americans too. Better angels and lots of devils.
This is a test of our capacity to outgrow tribal hatred, and to humbly apologize to those who, because they were not white male property owners, we didn't understand were also "we the people." This is a test of our moral imagination, and our moral courage.
I know it hurts. Everyone is hurting everyone they think hurt them. We win if we-the-people meet the challenge of we-the-people - peacefully.
I know there's a lot of history. A lot of detail. A lot of injustice. A lot of challenges with AI and ecological unraveling, but....
Do we really need a Dictator because we've failed to govern ourselves?
Can we still be we-the-people? I'm willing to stay in the game.
It’s not the right words on signs we need. Perhaps it’s just the repetition. It’s the chorus. The proof is in the living. It’s in living the words, not just writing them. It's in fidelity.
I am a writer but I often don’t want to add to the outpouring of words everywhere - outraged, intelligent, taunting, analytical, cute, funny, deep, dark words words words…
It’s so loud out there in the media, everyone shouting louder and louder. Once you start talking you think you need to keep talking, have something new to say each day.
Maybe it’s my age. In all of this shouting, I want to be quieter. Not add to the torrent of words.
Yet today is May Day. A day to be in the streets or around a fire or in community. It is the celebration of spring, new life, nature rioting up from slumber in vivid colors.
I spent today in the company of women I worked with for years in a shared devotion to changing the world. It was a reunion, after many years. Here we are on a park bench in Seattle enjoying the late afternoon sun, average age 78. I think we are demonstrating fidelity. And peace.
I’m so tired of all the “gotcha’s”. People who either like or don’t have many issues with the current regime’s tactics - on everything from immigration to taking that chainsaw to agencies, organizations, programs, even clawing back funds already distributed before t took over. Because, well, things weren’t perfect, were they? This country was far from perfect, and our imperfections have and are causing damage, pain, destruction. Some of them have been MAJOR - much of my work over the decades was about shining a light on these and offering alternatives. But . . . trashing everything makes no sense. So if I say something like I oppose the defunding of libraries, the “gotcha” might be: local communities fund libraries, so what is the problem? The reality is local governments do fund their libraries, it’s often part of what we vote on at town hall when the budge is or isn’t passed. But the defunding takes money away from some of the most important stuff libraries do. And locals aren’t going to be able to afford taking on additional costs. It will be poor, non-white communities who will be hardest hit and there will be closures. Museums were also part of that particular defunding. My point is, these arguments go nowhere, they’re circular and there are so many issues that go like this it’s exhausting to me. It’s getting to the point where I don’t even want to talk about what’s going on. I’d rather take that time to focus on other things, even if it’s just watching the many species of birds who visit my feeders on the balcony right now. I’m useless if I can’t find some peace in my heart, if the chatter takes my energy out of play, if you know what I mean. The challenge is how to gracefully move conversations from the “gotcha’s” to whatever comes next.
Wait is "m'aider" the root of a distress call of May Day! May Day! I did not know this!