Breathe

May Day rarely registers on my radar screen. Especially if I’m drowning in something I call #deathbydissertation.

(I thought I’d invented this particularly witty  and dramatic hashtag, but it turns out that approximately 36,472.8 people are also currently drowning in #deathbydissertation, which kind of weakens its snappy snarkiness. Hence my new hashtag: #mydeathbydissertationisbetterthanyourdeathbydissertation. Or maybe #worsethanyours. Comparatives can be tricky.)

But May Day takes on new significance when the delightfully precocious 3 and 6 year-olds from down the street unexpectedly knock on your front door, bob their bouncy-curled heads back and forth and say, “Hello! We’ve missed you so very much. Welcome home. We just love your dog. See my doll? She’s new. I love her. Here are some flowers for you and I drew three red hearts and a giant yellow sun and lots of green grass on the card and do you just really love these flowers!?”

Of course I do. I love them. Very much. Because there is nothing like bobbing bouncy-curled heads and fresh flowers and a homemade card (with three red hearts and a giant yellow sun and lots of green grass) to help a person remember that #deathbydisseration (even if it is worse than someone else’s) is just about the most selfishly ridiculous whine ever.

“Consider the lilies of the field (that neither toil nor spin). Welcome the little children (who inhabit the kingdom of heaven). Still your soul and remember you are loved (in spite of yourself).”

The voice may be only a whisper, but it’s always there, lingering just behind and beyond the clammer of foolish hashtags.

May Day 2013 was a good day to silence the complaints, settle the unrest, and ditch the sense of doom. #livebygrace