Hi, all, Daniel of 2019, here.
And as seems to
happen often, the holiday has snuck up on me—we’re delaying the
celebration until Saturday (which still seems a lot closer than I
thought it was) but the holiday is actually on Wednesday. June and I
have thought about having a private family celebration on the actual
day, but we’re not sure how that will work. The school tradition,
which is really the only way to celebrate Beltane that I’m familiar
with, is so community-based. We can’t dance a Maypole just the
three of us. Maybe we’ll get take-out and Netflix a David
Attenborough documentary. That seems a pretty good way to celebrate
the fecundity of the planet.
If the school still
existed in the same form it used to, I suppose we’d be preparing to
go to the Island. For all the times I went with Charlie as an
assistant, I never did go as one of the Six. Maybe one day I will.
The funny thing
about being of the Six only now, with the community in a kind of
exile, is that there is a constant looking back, a constant attention
to how things would be, or how they’re supposed to be, the present
defined by the shadow of the past, a past I wasn’t even part of the
six for. But Charlie would say that such a sense of dislocation is
normal, that everything is always in the process of becoming
something else. The idea that either the past or the future is solid
or stable is an illusion, though a persistent one.
My mind is foggy
today. I’ve had a persistent head-cold for a while lately and all I
want to do is sleep, but I can’t really afford to take any time
off. For one thing, I’ve got a holiday to help plan. And I’m not
even all that sick.
I’m just under the
weather enough that I can’t tell whether what I’ve just written
about change and time and all of that is profound or just
nonsensical.
In any case, happy
early Beltane.
-D.
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