First of May

Ahh! I think today means spring to me than any other day. The cherry trees are blowing their pink petals around, the trees are moving into their green stage out of the yellow-green one and the azaleas are beginning to bloom.
Thanks to Snooty Primadonna old memories are resurfacing of the private all girls Catholic school I went to for first through eighth grade. Although it was not a boarding school (it was at one time) it has some very similar traits to the one Snooty talks about, complete with “Motherhouse” attached. (When I told P about the whole Motherhouse thing, he asked me, “Is that kinda like a “Mothership.” I actually had a hard time saying no because the more I thought about it, it kinda was a good comparison.) It was and still is a beautiful school. The mental abuse though was very tough on a sensitive young thing such as myself. More on that another time.
What I remember about May was “The May Procession”. This was the day we crowned the statue of Mary outside our school with pomp and circumstance. We would all be in our uniforms, no coats, freezing our little butts off while there were readings and songs about Mary, topped of with the actual crowning with a crown made of flowers (they always picked the HUGEST teachers pet in the 8th grade to do the crowning). Then we would walk around the outside of the Motherhouse in perfect formation (the Marine silent drill team would be proud) to the chapel for Mass. I remember looking forward to this day for some reason. I can’t for the life of me remember why seeing as how we were usually very cold and the nuns stared at us for any sign of fidgeting or weakness. I’d like to think it was because it was springtime and the whole procession reminded me of that. You could hear the birds in the woods, smell the new woodchips in the recess yard and know that the smell of grass clippings was not far behind. This is what I would concentrate on as I stood there with my classmates in the cold spring morning.
So today, I will celebrate May by remembering that little girl, standing in her navy blue uniform, freezing cold but hopeful for the season to come.