Maypole

I’m back from my trip to DC, having wallowed in absurd amounts of tree pollen and dodged tent caterpillars falling like fat, leggy raindrops from the tree in my friend Liz’s front yard. Spring may have come to New York, but DC puts New York to shame. Our nation’s capital is overflowing with seasonal fertility, and I don’t mean the government. (I don’t think.)

I went to DC to meet with a group of fellow bloggers. Reya and Barbara brought a group of us together for a barbecue and a celebratory springtime dance around an actual maypole, occasioned by the visit of Lettuce from England. I don’t think I’d ever seen a real maypole before Saturday, but now I can say that I have experienced the weaving, ribbony silliness of a maypole dance.


Before we started, Reya instructed us to grasp our particular ribbon and imagine something that we want for ourselves, and then to grasp the pole and fill it with sexual energy (!). Then we wove around each other until we’d braided all the ribbons in a perfectly imperfect pattern, and tied them off with a bouquet.


That interwoven braid is a perfect metaphor for the entire weekend. Not only did I get to mingle with my fellow bloggers, but I rode in Gary's cute new Volkswagen, spent time with my friend Liz in Greenbelt, and visited with my high school friend Kevin and my Peace Corps friends Doreen and Hakim, and their kids Ramzy and Tarek. Many individual strands came together to weave this weekend’s DC experience.

I also ran five miles this morning, which felt great after a day of barbecue and wine and dessert! And I went to a plant nursery -- an exotic errand for a Manhattanite with a studio apartment -- and helped Liz collect pepper plants and an odd assortment of flowers for her yard. Afterwards, sitting on Liz’s porch, the aforementioned caterpillars creeping around me, I could actually see the pollen swirling down through the sunlight. What a world! What a season!