The lusty month of May

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!
- John Milton

Last night being May Eve, or the beginning of Beltane, I fell asleep thinking about the traditional activities thereof. Everything from Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon to Lerner and Loewe's Camelot paints the occasion as a time of giggling young people disappearing into the shrubs to have sex. I lay thinking about the irony of a fertility festival in a day of birth control and women's careers. Fertility is the last thing most of us want - women spend an average of four years of their childbearing years actually willing to bear children. For the rest, pregnancy spells social or economic disaster. We don't want sex to be about fertility.

"Wait," I realized, "Historically, I can't be alone in this. There must have been lots of people who didn't want to get pregnant, even on May Day. And before birth control, the way to avoid babies was to avoid sex. Failure to copulate on May Eve can't be that anachronistic."

It's not so simple, of course, because not all sex requires birth control. In college I read a brilliant article by Henry Abelove about the population increase in England around the time of the industrial revolution. He argues that the higher birthrate is not explainable by higher marriage rates or earlier age of marriage, but that "sexual intercourse so-called became importantly more popular in late eighteenth century England." Before that, he figures, people were more often having sex in ways that didn't make babies. He links the rise in production of goods to the rise in reproduction, suggesting that the emphasis on production in one's work life may have also carried through to one's sex life. Foreplay as such was invented at this point, he says. Just as rest time that used to be lengthier - the English apparently had a three-day weekend until industrialization, when it all got crammed into Sunday - acts that used to be sex in themselves became precursors to "real sex". It's a theory that no one can test now, but I loved the paper.

Sex of any kind on May Day itself seems less likely among those dedicated to early-morning revelry. Round about dawn I was in a field with forty other Morris dancers, singing "We'll end the day as we begun, we'll end it all in pleasure." I have grave doubts about the veracity of the song. My day, for example, began with the alarm going off at 4:25.
"Nnnng. Wake up."
"No."
"Jeff, get up. Up."
"Not time yet."
"It is. Get up."

Any further welcoming in the May will have to wait until we're better rested.

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.

- Sir Thomas Malory

Morris on!

There's something very comforting about coming back to things you did as a child, especially if you get to bring a new person with you. I spent my childhood weekends tagging along with my parents at Morris ales in a miniature version of their kit, then my teenage years dancing myself. At one point my immediate family composed about half the team.


I went to college in Philadelphia, a town with a regrettable lack of Morris teams that let women dance. Every year at Bryn Mawr's May Day celebration, the local men's team would perform. Their kids would wander around, wearing tiny bells on their ankles just like I used to do. Someday, I hoped, I could dance again? And have Morris babies with little bells on their ankles?

Months before I graduated, some lovely people decided to pull a team together for May Day. Oh the joy! The bells! The handkerchiefs!


Today twelve of us are on our way to the New England folk festival for two and a half days of music and dance. At the helm of the trip is Jeff, the boy I get to keep forever (and the other parent of any future Morris babies). He's untrained but certainly one of the more enthusiastic members of the team. There's something very right about doing Morris with him.

Yesterday I was pinning together my old hair ribbons for his vest, feeling a bit medieval. There's a wonderful passage in The Return of the Native about the lamentable effect of female improvements upon folk tradition, in this case mummers' plays:

The piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and all who were behind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women of each household. Without the co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the dresses were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this class of assistance was not without its drawbacks. The girls could never be brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the armour; they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any situation pleasing to their taste. . . .

It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had one likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the knowledge of Joe's sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk scallops at the bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of coloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face, were mostly of that material. Joe's sweetheart straight-way placed brilliant silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a little further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim's, not to be outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere. . . .

The guisers themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of persons, could not afford to offend those by whose assistance they so largely profited, and the innovations were allowed to stand.

Luckily Morris is supposed to look silly, so I can do no harm here.

Wow.

If everyone lived like I do, we would need 3.1 planets to sustain us. There are a number of ecological footprint quizzes out there, but I think this one is quite well-done: www.myfootprint.org

Tsoureki (Greek Easter Bread)

A sweet eggy bread, sort of like challah. Don't skip the orange zest. I won second prize in the Ionia Free Fair in Michigan with this bread last summer.

1 cup warm milk (about 110 F)
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons orange juice or concentrate
1 tablespoon (or one packet) yeast
about 5 cups white flour
4 eggs
2 teaspoons orange zest
1 teaspoon salt

In a big bowl, combine the milk, sugar, butter, orange juice, yeast, and one cup of the flour. This mix must be the right temperature - warm to the touch but not hot - or the yeast won't work! Let it sit in a warm place until it bubbles, about 20 minutes.

Separate one of the eggs and set aside the yolk. Stir the white and all the remaining ingredients into the dough. When it's too thick to stir, turn it onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Return it to the bowl and cover with a towel. Let sit in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

Punch down the dough and divide in three pieces. Roll the pieces into long ropes and braid them. On a greased baking sheet, lay the braid into a circle or wreath shape. If you want, nestle dyed eggs into the wreath. Let rise again until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Mix the egg yolk with a little water or milk and brush it onto the bread. Preheat the oven to 350. Bake the bread about 30 minutes.

Makes one large and beautiful loaf, suitable for feeding hungry Morris dancers who are staying at your house prior to the Easter parade.

The end of time

When I first read the lyrics to Ewan MacColl's "The First Time", I disliked them.

The first time ever I saw your face
I though the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon & stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark & the empty skies, my love
To the dark and empty skies.

The first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love
That was there at my command.

The first time ever I lay with you
And felt your heart beat over mine
I thought our joy would fill the earth
And last til the end of time, my love
And last til the end of time.

Knowing nothing of the story behind it, the words turned me off. "Sure, you thought your love would last forever, but of course it won't! Let alone sex. You probably got tired of her, if she didn't get tired of you first."

In college I discovered Peggy Seeger's album Songs of Love and Politics. Along with her own "I Want to Be an Engineer" and many other political songs, the most memorable love song is "The First Time", which Ewan wrote for her during a 1956 transatlantic phone call. They didn't get tired of each other - they were married for many decades. But she also sings the heartbreaking "Thoughts of Time", about being married to a much older man and living with the almost certain knowledge that Ewan would die before her.

These days I have marriage on the brain, and her story takes on more significance for me. The worst thing I can currently imagine is losing Jeff too early, though unless we both go in the same car wreck one of us has to die before the other. So this week when I found Peggy Seeger's most recent album Bring Me Home in the library, I was entranced by the last song. She describes the different people who have been home to her over the years - starting with her parents and brothers, then her life with Ewan, her life alone after his death. But the last verses are about her life with her new partner, Irene. I've never met any of these people, but I was happy all day after learning that! It felt like I had heard good news from a friend.

At Pendle Hill it's the end of term, students are leaving, and people are fond of quoting "The sorrow of your leaving lasts only a moment, because the joy of your being here lasts forever." I'm sure anyone who's lost a spouse will tell you the sorrow in fact lasts more than a moment. But at the same time, the world is a better place because Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl were in it. I hope at the end of our life together Jeff and I can know the same thing.

Can we please get over this?

I'm more and more appalled by the monotony of the spam I get at my work email address. A thousand different euphemisms are employed to sell penis enlargement - usually the message is clearly about that. But even ones with subject lines about some other aspect of sex or relationships are inevitably about expanding your love stick. It's strange to see men so objectified, boiled down to one ridiculous measurement.

Someone with no concept of human sexuality would come away from my inbox with the idea that it was all penises, all the time. Nothing about tickling or tongues or words or fingers in each other's hair. Nothing about fun or kindness. Nothing about women, except as rapt admirers of penises. And as for the rest of human interaction, you would think it consisted of mocking men without huge zucchini between their legs. ("Zucchini" is actually a far gentler metaphor than the emails use. If I'm ever approached by an organ that could be described as a "cannon", "anaconda", "monster", or "power drill", I'll run the other way.)

The sad thing is that they wouldn't send so many of these messages if they didn't work. Fear sells.