Based on the completely unscientific process of going outside and intuition acquired from Facebook posts, which is definitely sufficient to qualify as informed opinion, I am speculating that many people believe the ‘lockdown’ is easing and are becoming much more relaxed about social distancing. My evidence is watching four blokes in a van offload some Motorcross bikes to destroy the silence on the Shore Road and scare away the birds and other wildlife, something that would make me grumpy anyway. I tried to imagine they all live in the same household with their motorbikes. This is Gwyn doing the same.
My self-righteousness was qualified by the pleasure of being outdoors on a walk for the first time in a few weeks, with my knee playing along and the tear, inflammation etc, largely under control.
The power of spring is charging through hedgerows now, and the lack of grass cutting has illuminated the playing field, normally shorn to the bone for the kids to play sport, as an oasis of wild flowers and dandelions. Something which is both sad and beautiful.
Yesterday was Beltane and Mayday, a celebration of light, of fire, of struggle and solidarity. The knowledge that our wellbeing is dependent upon ordinary working people, often those performing tasks that are either forgotten or ignored, either because they’re vocational or routine, is now a common and collective understanding, something inscribed in our social history and collective memory. Mayday has always been a moment in the year to recognise this and Beltane a reminder that life struggles for life and that the possibility of preserving a single life is entwined in the ecological fabric necessary for all life. Sustainability is not a practice of pretending economic growth can go on forever, through the green-washed platitudes of corporations, it’s a measure of how quality of life can be preserved against the challenges of precisely those who colonise such discourses.
Happy belated Mayday and Beltane.
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