She’d collect them from the big yard. Geraniums. Red, pink, yellow. Roses perhaps too.
She’d fashion sheets of white paper — construction perhaps? — into cones. Tape the edges.
To each cone she’d attach paper handles. I think. Memory’s unclear. The white cones are certain.
And into each cone she’d insert bright colored blooms. She crafted about a dozen.
Then she’d hand them to my sister and me to distribute to the neighbors on the hill.
We lived on a hill. A big hill it seemed to our child eyes and legs. The homes were large, too the distance between each.
Traipsing through the hill was a workout, even to strong agile energetic bodies. Some sections were rather steep. All were winding.
Whether we rang each doorbell for personal delivery I can’t recall. It’s also possible that we covertly hung cones on the doorknobs and scuttled away in the not-so-secrecy of broad daylight.
Either delivery system, the outcome was unchanged.
A white cone bursting with colorful blooms. A lil’ something special from Santa some 7-1/2 months early.
Everyone on the hill knew one another.
Times have certainly changed. Distrust and suspicion in response to a knock on a door have replaced a welcome and gladness.
Would the enclave on the hill exist today? I’d like to think so.
The wisened self says nuh.
“You can’t go home again” is absolutely true. It is always best to leave memories intact. Even if they be hazy, weathered or sent somewhat adrift by the passage of time and aging.
My relationship with my mother was a horror, a living nightmare that at 63 I’ve yet to live down or through with any true full healing.
Through that blackness and destructiveness (hers), I saw still who she was and her positive qualities.
May Day was made for my mother — or she for it.
She genuinely loved clipping the geraniums — plentiful on our large lot. Constructing cones. Then having her two girls hoof from home to home on the hill.
It suited her.
Suited her playfulness. Her childlike qualities. Her taste for whimsy. Her marvelous gift at delivering surprises and delight.
Flowers at your door.
Delivered by FTD faeries.
Mom made May Day memorable and merry.
For years, years and years, every May 1 is fondly remembered my mother.
Wherever she be on the other side, there appears a surreptitious arrangement on her front door out of thin air:
Allelujah, Arizona! 