May Day

[pegkerr]

This past Sunday, Fiona and I went to the May Day parade put on by the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater. To my great grief, this may be the last one. HOTB, like many mid-sized art organizations, is having trouble raising funds, and they have laid off their entire staff. Putting on the May Day Parade and Tree ceremony costs approximately $200,000, and they didn't get a $130,000 grant they had expected to get. They may have to close their doors, although the City of Minneapolis is trying to figure out if the organization can be saved. Attempts to get another organization to help bear the cost have not borne fruit so far.

I deliberately didn't take pictures this year--I wanted to experience the parade without a camera in front of my face this time. You can see a lot of pictures online, however--naomikritzer has a great Twitter thread with a lot of pictures here.

There were two points of the parade that brought me to tears: one was a "wall" made up of sections of cardboard "concrete blocks" that interlocked. It was being pushed along by men dressed up in work uniforms with tools and hard hats. A few cardboard blocks lay in the street and nearby children knocked them down and the men kept piling them up again. Suddenly, at some signal that I couldn't see, about fifty children left the crowd from both sides of the street, raced to the wall and knocked it down into rubble in the street. naomikritzer's picture below:



The other was the Tree of Life being wheeled along by its accompanying marchers, dressed in white. The Tree was draped in black. I knew that in about an hour, the tree would rise again at the side of the lake, but right now, seeing the Tree roll by, draped in black, it was hard not to remember that this would probably be the last parade. It felt like a death. I know that the point is that the seed falls to the earth and dies so that new life can rise out of the earth every spring. But I'm still a relatively new widow mourning my husband, and things come to an end and change is hard. The Tree draped in black smote my heart in a new way.

After the parade, Fiona and I made our way over to Powderhorn Park to join the Minn-stf picnic and watch the Sun progress over the lake to join the ceremony at the opposite end. The Minn-stf gathering was smaller this year, and we didn't stay much past the ceremony. I was bushed from the weekend of running Synod Assembly. I fell asleep on the couch at 8:00 p.m.

Comments

[aome]

OH NO!!! I was actually commenting on the parade to ... Two, I think? Can't remember if it was Two or MiniPlu ... this weekend, talking about how you got this great parade on Sat, and that I really really wanted to come see it someday. It didn't even occur to me that it might stop happening.

I know how important this tradition has been for you and your family. I'm really really hoping they find the funding for another year.

[pegkerr]

Here's the article in the local paper about the troubles that HOTB has been having.

[pegkerr]

And it's the 45th year of the parade...I really thought it was going to go on forever, too. The thought that I may never see another one is absolutely heartbreaking.

[minnehaha]

The Tree of Life was handled the same way as always. She is always draped in black and pushed down the parade route by white-garbed attendants. The Crew gets to see half the parade, since they trade out this chore half way along the route with the others in the Crew taking over. I think Lojo's ex is on the Crew now.

I get the heartbreakingness of it, too. But it was not something new.

K.

[pegkerr]

Oh, I know it wasn’t something new at all; I remember seeing it draped in black other years. It just...hit me in the feels this year, in a way I don’t remember it doing before.