​​May Day—May 1—the first day of the fifth month of our calendar year—conjures the artful image of a circle of celebrants, twirling and dancing around a tall pole, each merrymaker holding one end of a long ribbon tethered to the top of the stanchion.

​Because the Puritans of New England considered the celebrations of May Day to be licentious and pagan, they forbade any observances. Though the holiday never became an important part of American culture, certainly May Day festivities in our country never totally disappeared. I love the May Day story my husband David tells me. When he was a young boy his family would gather spring flowers from their gardens. They filled artfully arranged baskets and quietly left these gifts on the front steps for elderly neighbors to find. 

On the web you can find a plethora of beautiful May Day photographs and paintings of American children in school yards, white frocked fair damsels with strapping young men on lawns and gaily dressed adults in many a church close weaving the Maypole dance!

Even so, in the 20th century, traditional May Day celebrations declined in many countries as May 1 became associated with the international May Day holiday, also called Workers’ Day or International Workers’ Day. This day commemorates and honors the historic struggles and gains made by workers and the labor movements worldwide. In the United States and Canada a similar observance, known as Labor Day, occurs on the first Monday of September.

May Day can be more than a spring day for ritual and celebration and an international day to honor workers. The two words, when conflated, have a very different meaning. “Mayday!” is the distress call we often associate with the plight of a sinking ship or a plane going down. Why “Mayday”? Why not S.O.S.? The "mayday" term was first used as an international distress call in the early 1920’s. Before the voice call "mayday", S.O.S. was the Morse code equivalent call.

“Mayday” was the idea of Frederick Mockford, a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London. Mockford came up with his idea for “mayday” when he was asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the traffic at the time was between London’s Croydon Airport and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the expression "mayday" from the French "m'aider" (help me), a shortened form of "venez m'aider" (come and help me). In 1927, the International Radiotelegraph Convention of Washington adopted the voice call mayday as the radiotelephone distress call in place of the S.O.S. radiotelegraph call.  The “mayday” call was made official 1948.
 
Sometimes I think I can almost hear “mayday! mayday!” going out over Carthage and echoing around the world like a collective shout made in response to the continuing pandemic impact. As individuals and entities call out “mayday! mayday!”—“help us! help us!'—I am heartened to hear encouraging responses. They are coming on many frequencies. Whether on social media or in virtual meetings or via snail or email, the responses are coming!

Yes, in these challenges times, our “mayday!” is heard. Help is on the way for artCentral—our hometown, non-profit arts center! I am eager to share artCentral’s good news stories. Please stay tuned for our spirit-lifting news in the artful month of May!

Each day my cell phone rings and I hear the precious voice of Mary my BFF calling from Arkansas for our ritual check in: “How are you? What are you going to do today? The puppies are playing. Husband is fine. I love you!” Three minutes, or maybe ten minutes tops—a brief, daily phone call—a sweet gift worth celebrating!

By phone I reach out to another special friend, when I am trying to process challenging concerns—concerns I just cannot seem to sort out, because I have tried too long and too hard on my own and my mind is stuck in a spin cycle. She is a skilled, intelligent listener. She is always honest and kind with her feedback. I trust her. I value her. She has the analytical mind of an engineer and the grounded reality of a gifted master gardener.

First by text messaging we set a time when my go-to friend will be in a listening/weeding mode. (She is diligently using this sheltering time to weed, weed and weed an extensive plot in preparation for her large organic summer garden.)

We connect. I talk and talk and talk. My friend listens and weeds: she gives me plenty of spacious time to speak and hear myself as she bears witness to my distress. She asks a few clarifying questions then tells me what she hears me saying. She shares what she has learned from her own experiences. She tells me she cares—that she is always here for me, as she knows I am for her.

I celebrate my weeding/listening/caring friend and the epiphanies that come as gifts with her willingness to companion me. Her friendship is a tremendous blessing!

Causes for celebrations are coming by mail, too, like the generous “stimulus checks” to use as we choose. These are amazing blessings. I am grateful.

Our marvelous, magical technological age brings digital blessings every day. My alma mater, affectionately known by many as the “little Harvard of the South”, recently emailed an announcement of the opening of the Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College. Included was an invitation for me as an artist to exhibit in the inaugural exhibition, "Be Hendrix!".

The exhibition’s thesis “is that the Hendrix diaspora reflects a rich and diverse commitment to the visual arts. "Be Hendrix!" honors the power of art to transform the lives of past, current, and future generations…” I am celebrating having my intimate, multi-media photo/painting, "Give Happiness…and you will end up happy", selected for inclusion in the Windgate’s inaugural exhibition.

I am also celebrating our capabilities for easy online communications with virtual audio/visual conferencing. Already I have participated in a Virtual Carthage broadcast created by media guru and artCentral board member Wendi Douglas in partnership with David Hoover of the Carthage Press. I was honored to share the screen with three gifted artCentral member artists—Brenda Hays, Helen Kunze and Koral Martin. I spoke of how my husband David and I are using our sheltering time to make our own art, and I told how artCentral is supporting art and artists during the pandemic.

Especially meaningful to me on my celebration list is the first virtual artCentral Board of Directors meeting via the Zoom app, set up by Wendi Douglas and presided over by Betsy Flanigan, president. All board members were present: Jane Ballard, Jackie Boyer, Maddie Capps, Betsy, Wendi, Doug Osborn, Jason Shelfer and Kerry Sturgis. What a joy to see all our faces on the same screen, while artCentral is temporarily closed through July, and we are unable to gather together. We had a good time perfecting our Zoom skills as we got down to the serious business of shepherding artCentral through the pandemic doing our very best to support and promote art and artists by celebrating them at every opportunity.

Please everyone, use this sheltering time to practice your own Art of Celebrating while you…Stay home! Stay safe! Save lives! And help flatten the curve!

​In the midst of a down-to-the-wire day this afternoon’s particular text from Betsy was not work related, rather a thoughtful, uplifting message sent by “ma cherie amie”. One simple sentence—“You are a flâneur!!”

Attached was a link to a brief and lovely travel article written by Erika Owen, author of “The Art of Flâneuring”:  https://www.afar.com/magazine/how-flaneuring-will-help-you-wander-with-intention.

Ms. Owen encourages us: “In moments like this, when we’re all looking inward to find peace during a global health pandemic, finding beauty and community from a safe social distance has never been more important. And you can still feed your need for experiencing the new from the comfort of your neighborhood…. You don’t have to give up your sense of adventure—you just have to be a little more observant.”

Referencing a French descriptor that came into vogue in 19th century Paris, Ms. Owen describes a “flâneur” as “someone [a man, ‘flâneuse’ is the feminine] who practices the art of wandering with intention”.

Ah, I am touched to be seen and appreciated by Betsy for something that comes naturally to me—my early morning walkabouts and ramblings.

Betsy, like many other friends, views my almost daily morning flâneuring photos that I post on my facebook page. They are my wee celebrations—my virtual journal entries I love to share. They tell of the wonders—the ordinary and the surprising discoveries—I encounter all around as I take our Aussie, Lasyrenn, from home through our hood to our ritual Central Park walkabout and back home again.

For each of Lasyrenn’s training walks, as I deliver all my requests in French, the language to which Lasyrenn best responds, over and over we practice Lasyrenn’s walking at heel on a loose lead. This is a hard lesson for a puppy who is by nature a leader and herder and free spirit. Squirrels seem to purposefully scamper across the sidewalks as naughty temptations to be chased and organized. Lasyrenn is getting better at pausing and just watching without tugging ahead. At street corners she sits to look both ways while waiting for my gesture to carry on.

Lasyrenn loves the stretches with high and low stone walls where she is allowed to jump up and down then perch to shake a paw and give a high five. She especially enjoys striding atop the wall around the park fountain and pool—making turn after turn right and left.

Season through season while we are walking and training and repeating lessons and adding to Lasyrenn’s skill set, I am taking in the sights and the sounds and the scents we are passing. From time to time we stop: I lift my cell phone and take a photo here and one there to document the morning's beauty and surprises that companion us.

I photograph and post pictures of our majestic Courthouse, the Park’s solitary martin house and the knot holes in towering trees; puddles after a rain that reflect wavy fence rows and second story windows; and the belfry of the Presbyterian church on one corner and Director Julie Yockey’s beloved Carthage Public Library on another.

I photograph communities of starlings lined up in neat rows like chorusing embellishments on the Fire Station’s tower; mosaics made by leaves on herring-boned brick sidewalks and blossoms in every season of their blooming; fragrant wisteria arching over a park entrance and an abandoned truck or car permanently parked in an alley on the way to an afterlife; and bicycles left out in a pile overnight and lop-eared bunnies supporting the benches in Alice’s library garden.  

We live in a sweet and amazing hometown! We have so much to discover and see every day. All we have to do is step outside, go ramble-ing and observing then shelter back place again—our senses saturated with pleasure, our spirits soothed with flâneuring. 
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Please practice your own Art of Flâneuring. Adventure through a picture book or travel through uplifting online images or go out and start walking. Then return. Stay home! Stay safe! Save lives! And help flatten the curve!
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Though our paths for today are strewn with uncertainties, may the footsteps of our hearts keep us moving forward and finding beauty everywhere along our ways until we once again find each other.
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​Visionaries are role modeling for us. Visionaries like Wendi Douglas a member of artCentral’s Board of Directors. In partnership with David Hoover of The Carthage Press she is offering frequent live Virtual Carthage broadcasts on The Carthage Press facebook page.

​I had the good fortune to appear as a guest along with three other artCentral artists talking about how we are making, sharing and marketing our art and supporting each other during these challenging times. My artist husband David sat off-screen beside me, holding my hand, keeping me steady as one by one we each spoke of our passions to seek meaning, to create, to find and give pleasure in the midst of uncertainty.

So often what I need and want most is a rock and a ballast, a place to be grounded in these days of shifting sands. David is this for me, and so for our third anniversary, I wrote him a letter that goes… 

With love in Paradise...Happy Third Emergency Anniversary, Mon Cher!

Do you remember? That early April afternoon I was working diligently on an artCentral deadline. Our loan officer called. He said, "To qualify for the loan for your new house, you must get married today! You can't wait until May!"

At 4:20 we chose the Country Caboose Wedding Chapel in Joplin, 20 minutes away. I called there. Jane Ballard told us, "I can wait for you until 5:00. You will need to bring two witnesses!"

Back in the car, David driving with 40 minutes to make the chapel, I called Lora Waring. I said, "We're coming to get you to witness our emergency wedding." She said, "OK!" and was waiting at her door clutching a long stem of her lovingly nurtured alabaster orchids for my bouquet. 

David driving again, I next called our real estate agent and good friend, Gail White. As David pulled up to her house she protested, "I'm just stepping out of the shower, and I have a 5:30 showing." David went in and escorted her out as she pulled on the last of her clothes and wrapped a scarf with flair around her neck!

​David drove really fast on the curvy back way across Center Creek, up Elm past pastures and down Prosperity Road. We arrived at 4:44 for our wedding.

Do you remember?
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Please everyone, use this sheltering time to make good memories as best you can, so someday we can remember that together we flattened the curve.   

Please stay home! Stay safe! Save lives!

While I continue artCentral’s work from my home studio/office, my husband David and I are still sticking to our morning schedule. We rise at 4:44 a.m. to do our daily coffee/meditation/ringing of our Tibetan singing bowl/breakfast rituals in order for him to ride his motorcycle, go through the sanitation lines and be at his station before 8:30.

David’s day job is working in a food production line at Ajinomoto just down the road from Carthage. He, like so many others in our essential service industries, is continuing to show up for the benefit of all of us. From behind the scenes, David and his colleagues work in teams producing products that help keep grocery stores stocked, so we can find what we need when we venture out for supplies.

“Be sure to tell David ‘thank’ you for going to work every day!” was the message spoken by two Arkansas friends who called this week. Adding my own “thank you”, I immediately messaged David, so he would find our appreciation on his first break of the morning.

In these exceptional times, when many of us have become hyper alert to the importance of sanitizing measures, Ajinomoto has been way ahead of this curve with strict protocols and procedures that keep their food production safe. Definitely, a silver lining! I am truly impressed with their “no exceptions” standards, and with their proactively stepping these up—doubling their sanitizing efforts and implementing social distancing among their employees. Daily they set the bar very high for all of us as we learn the practices we all must follow to stay healthy and safe and to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am proud of David for choosing to work for a company with the integrity of Ajinomoto.

I also respect David for his effort to provide maximum protection for our family by naming himself as our designated runner. He is another of my silver linings! While I still venture out to take Lasyrenn, our Aussie, for her morning training walks in Central Park, David is the one who makes the food runs to restock our home supplies. He takes extra care to socially distance himself in public spaces, wearing protective gloves when he gathers supplies off shelves or fills our van with fuel. He puts his clothing directly into the washing machine as soon as he gets home. We both wash our hands lots and lots!

Across our country folks everywhere are getting creative. My son lives in Seattle, one of corona’s first epicenters, where effective facemasks have long since been unavailable for purchase. He tells me that his neighborhood has formed a group of those with sewing skills. In their individual homes they are collaboratively making highly effective “arty” facemasks that meet the highest standards for healthy protection.

On the East Coast both my daughter and son-in-law both working their long professional days while sheltering in place with their girls of six and one. Their school system was one of the first in the nation to shut down and send the students home. For six-year-old first-grader, Sophie, Mom Audrey quickly created a daytime schedule set up in half hour and one hour segments.

As the days flow one into the next, I am thankful for yet another silver lining. Audrey has engaged me in virtual homeschooling support. This is a splendid opportunity for Sophie and me to spend an hour or so on FaceTime doing the lesson her mother has set up for us.

The first day we went over all the ingredients that she prepared for her online group cooking class. She mentioned the applesauce to be used in her brownies was not her favorite food ingredient. The second day I got to teach Sophie’s art lesson about drawing and painting a fish following the inspiration of the artist Paul Klee.
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These precious shared creative experiences are definitely upsides to this very curious time we are all experiencing!

​Stay home, if you can. Stay safe! Stay well! Look for your own silver linings.
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“There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” (Leonard Cohen).
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For new artCentral developments and announcements and more silver linings, please visit www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/ and www.artcentralcarthage.org/events.html.