Pure Spring

Perhaps I should have taken this day more seriously.

After all, on this date exactly 140 years ago, more than 300,000 workers in the US—50,000 in Chicago alone—went on strike for an eight-hour workday. The walkout in the Windy City led to the Haymarket Riot.

In other countries, this date—May Day—is observed, formally or informally, as Labor Day was in the US before it became an occasion for “last chance” summer parties and sales on stuff nobody needs.

Today, though, it was easy to forget how solemn this day could be. The sky was bright, the air clear (for NYC anyway) and brisk and the colors bold. It wasn’t like days in late March or early April that carry memories of a brutal, seemingly endless Winter that one has somehow survived, nor did it mirror or echo hints of Summer heat. It was Pure Spring.

So what did I do? I took Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike, for a spin among blossoming magnolias and beds of red, white, yellow and violet tulips on Randall’s Island.

And when I got home, I turned on music. Tchaikovsky’s “Rites of Spring?” Not quite. The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun?” Not even. Rather, I clicked onto a YouTube video of pure bubble gum:  The Monkees’ “I’m A Believer.” 

It may not be deep, but it expresses a moment when someone loses his cynicism—in this case, about finding love. Perhaps I chose it because the first time I can recall hearing it was on a day like this: Shadows of the past (of which, to be fair, I was too young to have very much of) did not cling to it; if a darker future lay ahead, I had no hint of it.

It was the first Pure Spring day I can remember. Others followed; perhaps more will come. I can only follow the journey, I can only ride through and with it.