May
May, I look forward to enjoying you again next year. I hope I will be able to fully appreciate you. This year I was preoccupied. I didn’t notice the passing of the bluebells or the wild garlic. They quietly retreated to their underground world leaving tired nondescript leaves on the woodland floor. The nettles quickly grew tall and lanky. I had ambitious plans for all sorts of delicious foraged goodies, but I know I should congratulate myself for achieving a batch of nettle soup and a nettle quiche. Perhaps, when the girls are grown and all my hair is silvered, I’ll have a fridge full of nettle delights! The humble “red”, but pink, campion has given way to statuesque magenta foxgloves and yet my planned red campion print is still in the sketch stages. I printed my bluebell linocut last week, though the bluebells are long gone. Sturdy hogweed, is standing tall along the waysides, dominating it’s daintier umbellifer cousin, the frothy cow parsley.
The month was squeezed between two lovely rites. She began with the ancient May Day festival. We walked over the hill to watch children dance and weave colourful ribbons in swirls and criss-crosses around the Ansty Maypole and cheered for the May Queen as she was crowned with a wreath of wildflowers. The month closed with a 13th birthday celebration for our amazing new teen! The rest of the month was filled to overflowing with busyness. But May didn’t wait for me to find a still moment to drink it all in, to watch the subtle shift of green in the woodland leaves.
I caught brief glimpses of May’s delights here and there. A’s beautiful wildflower bouquets, young nettles and brambles snagging and stinging bare legs, dewy grassy fronds coolly wiping across my thighs on my morning runs, the rich earthy smell of the wood after a rain. I remember pointing out the May blossom on the Hawthorns to Jon on one of our morning walks. But our walks and our heads have been weighed down with heavy conversation as we’ve wrestled with our tax returns, weighed the merits of living in the U.K. verses the U.S. and all the while sad news from around the world keeps pouring in. Climate change, war, increased living costs, gun violence in the U.S., Uvalde. “Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States” (www.everytown.org). This should not have happened again. It should never happen. Children should never need to practice active shooter drills in school. Like all American school children, my daughters practiced lock-down drills by hiding in a locked supply cupboard with their teacher from the age of 5. That doesn’t happen here in the U.K. People in power in the U.S. have failed to protect these school children. I desperately hope that when May returns next year, politicians will have risen above their partisan politics and established strict gun control laws.
