It’s the May Day Parade today! I’m not sure exactly what we’re celebrating as a community here, perhaps pageantry and puppetry! Spring, summer, May, sun…I hope there are Maypoles.

In any event, I lingered in bed this morning, in the streaming sunlight from my window, thinking about what I could celebrate today.

  • My awesomeness
  • My friends’ awesomeness
  • California, The Promised Land
  • The resiliency of the human heart
  • The buoyancy of giant puppets
  • My best buddy Andy’s film debut
  • The color green
  • Susan Bunnykins, Queen of May
  • Men who want to be better men for the woman they love
  • Women who want to be better women for the man they love
  • Anyone who holds out for a love greater than they dreamed possible

Awww, May Day is a LOVE festival!

It is only with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre’s annual May Day Parade that we can shed our fears of winter and join in a communal celebration of rebirth that is as joyous, giddy, and oversized as our emotions.

When those two-story-tall puppets begin their haunting, wordless journey to Powderhorn Park, whatever remains of our seasonal depression slips away.

The relief of it is enough to send spectators into tears when, along with the tens of thousands of other attendees, they begin to sing a song that finally banishes winter for another six months: Gene Autry’s “You Are My Sunshine.”

Crap. I am going to cry if they sing that damn song.

Oh well. I’ll make a float out of my oversized emotions and ride it all the way home to California.

Susan Bunnykins, Queen of MAY!!!!!