Today’s post is a watercolor from The Survivor Tree, a book by Cheryl Aubin that I illustrated, which was released last year for the ten-year anniversary of September 11th. Cheryl will be presenting her story and we will both be signing books this coming Saturday, May 19th, at the Gaithersburg Book Festival.

Our family is excited that among the other presenters are Andrew Clements, a favorite author of my daughter, and local writer Sara Mansfield Taber, who recently completed a memoir, Born Under an Assumed Name, about growing up as the daughter of a covert CIA agent.

And perhaps we will see some of you there, too!

If you have not yet visited Tudor Place in Washington, DC, and the mothers in your life (perhaps including yourself) are fans of garden walks/historic houses/afternoon tea, you may want to add it to your Expeditions list. Built in 1816 by Martha Washington’s granddaughter, Tudor Place sits on, unbelievably, five (5!) acres in the middle of Georgetown, and is a green, flowery and bird-filled retreat from the busy surrounding streets.

I post this sketch today because Tudor Place was one of our three-generation (grandmother-mother-daughter) destinations when my mother was still with us, and every visit is a lovely, though poignant, reminder. Happy Mothers Day, Mom, and all you mothers out there. May your day hold flowers and bird-song.

Justin

Below is one of a series of four of my still-life paintings in the exhibit.

Celeste

Uncle Mike

Maurice Sendak

Karla

Who would have guessed, years ago, when I made this sketch of artistic, musical, multi-talented, other-worldly pre-Raphaelite Hallie (then in Middle School), that she would now be embarking upon a double Master’s Degree in Physics and Education with the intention of teaching science in inner-city schools? Happy Birthday, Hallie! and many good wishes.

Here is a May poem for this day.

Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim
My coming, and the swarming of the bees.
These are my heralds, and behold! my name
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.
I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;
I waft o’er all the land from far away
The breath and bloom of the Hesperides,
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.

—Arthur Symons, from The Poet’s Calendar

Hallie

Unlike the Winter Revels, the May Revels is always held outdoors, and I recall the days when, on the first Sunday in May, Brandywine Street here in Washington DC was closed to traffic, decked with garlands of flowers, and temporarily transformed into an Olde English Village. Nowadays the May Revels is frequently a component of Washington Cathedral’s annual Flower Mart, and, although of smaller scale, is still a lovely opportunity to watch a mummers’ play, sing, and dance around the Maypole. (And you can also visit the Flower Mart, whose featured country this year is Jamaica.)

This sketch is from a May Revels that took place at the National Audubon Society.

Jacqui

Aunt Francie

Eric

In some countries, the first of May is a holiday in commemoration of the international labor movement, marked by rallies, marches, and parades in recognition of the worker, sometimes followed by picnics and dancing. This latter activity harkens back to the far more ancient festival of the first of May, which, like Groundhog Day and Dia de los Muertos, falls roughly halfway between an equinox and a solstice.

For May the first is (what else?!) a happy acknowledgement of the arrival of spring and its attendant burgeoning fertility. At last the winter is truly behind us, and the world is so fresh and green and blooming that sitting indoors at a computer seems an act of madness. Shut it down, doff the heels/necktie, deck yourself with a crown of flowers and skip about in the gentle spring sunshine, celebrating the world’s inexhaustible and optimistic fruitfulness.

Here we come a-piping,
In Springtime and in May;
Green fruit a-ripening,
And Winter fled away.
The Queen she sits upon the strand,
Fair as lily, white as wand;
Seven billows on the sea,
Horses riding fast and free,
And bells beyond the sand.

—Traditional

Mary

Josiah

In gratitude for this resource, fellow city-dwellers, you may wish to sign up for one of the many area clean-ups through your local community association, or, alternatively, the Earth Day website, where everyone, whether urban, suburban, or rural, can discover many ways to say Thank You to Mother Earth.

For another sketch, and a history of Earth Day, please see Earth Day.

Gunilla

Hasse

Mom

This year, 2012, marks the 100-year anniversary of the gift of cherry trees from Tokyo, Japan to the city of Washington, DC, and so the annual flowering and pilgrimage to the Tidal Basin has been accompanied this season not only by the usual parade and street festivals, but also by a vast range of concerts, lectures, films, theatrical performances, cruises, workshops, and a dizzying selection of art, craft, textile, photography, and history exhibits. If you haven’t been checking them out, it’s not too late; some continue well beyond cherry blossom season.

Throughout changing administrations, evolving political systems, and wars, including one in which the United States and Japan bombed and killed each other’s citizens, the cherry trees have stood silently along the water’s edge, reliably budding and blooming each spring, and sprinkling with poignant pink-and-white petals their millions of admiring visitors. Now grown (we hope) to a more mature phase in our relationship, we two peoples take up our passports and visit one another amicably, sometimes transplanting ourselves and intermarrying.

Distantly related to rough-housing among children encountering one another in a sandbox, warfare has, throughout human history, served as a bizarre prelude to mutual recognition, acceptance, and eventual intimacy. At the height of WWII, there probably weren’t many people who, seeing their society’s young men dying horribly, envisioned enemy citizens as potential in-laws or their towns as future tourist destinations. But, given the pattern, perhaps we Americans can optimistically anticipate our grandchildren doing their study abroad, and perhaps finding their spouses, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And, hoping you haven’t had enough cherry blossoms already, I post this completed painting, of which I showed the early stage in March. (Undoubtedly some will prefer that earlier stage!) Happy Sakura Season, everyone.