may day

some of you may not know what may day is. those of you raised in heathen parts of the world like new york city or chicago. but i was raised by wholesome folks in the lovely midwest and i know. i dont know whether it started as a craft project at school or at home, but when we were small, each may first my sisters and i filled little construction paper baskets with flowers and ran to hang them from the doors of our neighbors' houses. our own house sat between two stone bungalows as neat as anything from a fairy tale. one one side lived the longsuffering parents of the boys who brought us hailstones, a skinny woman named joy who grew strawberries in her backyard and let us sit with her in a swing on her front porch far longer than i'd have patience for and her easygoing husband john. the other house was home to two elderly sisters who, in my mind, thought we were adorable children. i'm not saying we were. i'm saying they were old ladies, always scented with powder, always perfectly made up. the point is, you put these flowers in this basket and hang it from a door. you ring the bell or knock and then tear off the porch and hide. it's an anonymous gift. flowers. the goal is to do something small and nice without taking credit for it. this is a difficult concept for ninth graders. anonymity is strange to them and the idea of putting forth effort without any hope of reward seems pretty stupid.

so this may day i carried forty tulips (tulips are super cheap in brooklyn this time of year for those of you interested in spiffing up a place with flowers), light and dark green tissue paper, yellow tissue paper, plastic cups and light green striped small gift bags. the first class of the day is forced to participate in this ritual for no good reason i can think of but that it's early and it's easier to sneak up on people early. because we are on the fourth floor, a small floor, we only have four neighbor classrooms and we start there. three of these teachers have been victims of may day before and are kind enough to play along, to be surprised, to not see children sneaking around outside their classrooms.

the baskets are made up. the children are reading. i call a child to the door, the child who asks to run every errand because he can't sit still more than two seconds in a row, the child who uses at least a box of tissues a week for a variety of upper respiratory ailments his mother doesn't appear to be interested in addressing. i explain his task and walk with him to the door. he crouches low and slinks along the wall to just outside a neighbor teacher's door where he cranes his neck to peer inside the classroom. he runs back, basket still clutched in his fingers. "i think she saw me!" this poor kid is already in deeper than he knows. he is committed to the mission. it does not take much to get children committed to the right mission. he prepares to go out again, inches along the wall, scrunches down next to the teacher's door then quickly scoots the basket into the open doorway. as the basket slides toward the door the child shoots back and hides in the stairwell across from our own classroom door. he stands there, back pressed to the wall spy-style, breathing hard. he peeks around the corner and runs into our classroom before the teacher ever makes it over to the basket.

some of the kids are scared of the sneakiness and some are just shy, but several children want to roam the hallway and be involved in all the subterfuge of a prank, knowing that if they get caught, the only suffering they'll have will be at the hands of classmates who will mock them for being less than stealthy. the next child chooses to go down our stairwell a floor and sneak back up another stairwell near his intended recipient's classroom so he won't have to walk in front of an open door on our floor and give away the secret to any of the other classrooms. we have several baskets left and children choose other teachers on other floors, leaving one at a time to sneak up and deliver baskets.

one boy insists he wants to take the last basket. he is a child who sings constantly under his breath, songs about me or songs about a student in the room he fixates on. when he isn't singing, he's having a constant conversation with himself, always low, not intended for public hearing. because of his singing and conversations, he is often lost in class. this is not the right task for him. i ask him if he is sure he's stealthy enough. he promises he is (he isn't). i ask him if he knows the teacher he's to deliver to. he says yes, says he has her for a class (he doesn't). he takes the basket downstairs and comes back quite some time later, claiming victory. i ask if he delivered the basket and kept himself secret. he insists he has and grins broadly. he is thrilled with himself. he genuinely believes he has accomplished the task set for him. later that day, the teacher he delivered to thanked me for the flowers and asked about the strange child who delivered them. she had seen him wandering the hall with the basket, looking confused. he told her he was delivering flowers, said her name and asked if she knew that teacher. recognizing her own name, she said yes, and told him she was the person he was looking for. he had no idea who she was. he handed her the flowers, told her they were from me and ran off, giggling, completely negating every claim he made before he left and every claim he made on his return. telling the story, the teacher couldn't stop laughing either. i have no idea what made this child insist all these things were true when they weren't, but the teacher got her flowers and the child had what seemed to be a very good time delivering them, so i think we're all fine.

the women who got flowers seemed pretty happy about it. they said thanks (the goal is to remain anonymous, but since i'm the only one goofy enough to do this every year most folks have figured it out by the end of the day) and carried their baskets with them. the men, on the other hand, didn't say a word. the men who got flowers aren't men i chose. the children chose and delivered. and although i've been doing this long enough that the men i work with should know it's not personal, they seem uncomfortable every year if flowers show up. they never take them home. i hope they at least give them to children who might want them. and you'd think that since i know this, i'd direct the kids away from delivering to male teachers. but i think men should get flowers and not feel funny about it. especially on may day and especially if they're gifts from children. it's a good sign the kids want to give flowers to men. it shows that with all the awful things we say about their miserable generation, they spread things around a little more fairly. but mostly the reason i don't discourage the kids from giving flowers to the men in their lives is that i really, truly enjoy knowing those men feel uncomfortable picking up a basket of flowers in front of a class full of children. they think it makes them less manly. that's not at all what makes them less manly. what makes them less manly is that when children give them flowers, they don't know how to accept that gift with simple grace.