litera/ture/nerd

May Day in April

I went to May Day yesterday. May Day is something that I haven’t really done since I graduated from Brenau four years ago. And I wasn’t really planning on changing that—May Day has always felt like a very flawed event to me. But when I met up with Anna-E, Cheryl, and Sarah for Winter Weekend, they convinced me that we would all have a good time together.

So I headed over to Anthropologie to find a May Day dress. And let me just say as a side-note: Anthropologie is the perfect place for May Day dresses. You’re far less likely to end up in a “she’s wearing my dress!” situation with an Anthro dress than with, say, a Gap dress. And strangers come up to you and say “I love your Anthro dress,” which is actually kind of fun.

So I had my dress, I had an old pair of purple suede wedges that kind of fit the dress perfectly, I had my camera packed, and I was ready to go. The day went on about as expected—a combination of too much heat and too much wind (which is pretty standard for May Day, I’d say), mediocre food, and running commentary during the May Court presentation.

And I’d just like to say, as a side note, that I’ve always found the May Court presentation to be a ridiculously anticlimactic affair. The girls are escorted to the stage, take a seat on a theater stool, hold their calla lily awkwardly across their lap, and just try to stay focused on keeping their ankles crossed the entire time. The May Queen’s presented, Schraeder blocks everyone’s view as he crowns her, and that’s pretty much it. There isn’t even a Junior Class Skit anymore—which is all kinds of disappointing.

What I realized throughout the course of my first May Day experience as an alumna is how truly different the experience is when you’re older. When you focus most of your attention during the May Court presentation on the girls’ hemlines. When you complain about how little they actually wrapped the may pole. When you spend most of the day talking to old friends about their kids. When you need two highchairs at the post-May Day El Sombrero lunch.

How much we change in four years, man. How much we change.