May Day

May. May I? May I say? May Day. There's a day in May that's important to me. There are two important May Days. Birthday days.

Why are birthdays so important?

I think it's to check your progress. To take your emotional temperature. To see where you are in the thickets of life, and climb a tree to spy out the path, if there is one.

Important days, birthdays. You find out who your friends are. You find out which of your friends have good memories. You find out which friends decide that your birthday is important enough to mark with a card or a cheery email.

Or not.

Have I made some progress since last birthday? What is progress? What do I mean by progress? Can progress be measured? Is it something I can test? Is it something I should test? And should I ask so many questions or should I be quiet and just be?

What have I done since last birthday?

Have I done what I wanted to do before this birthday?

Has life handed me a fistful of lemons and have I filled a whole row of bottles with lemonade? And did I sell the lemonade or have I thrown the bottles out? (Or recycled them?)

I'm still feeling idle curiosity so I'll just say I'm not even going to examine those questions.

And I don't like lemonade or cute slogans anyway.


Let's just live May to the fullest and drain its goodness to the last drop.

May your month be pleasant.