In France the month of May starts off sweetly enough, or so it seems. May 1st, the feast day of Saint Joseph the Worker, is an official bank holiday with a vegetal component: lilies of the valley. They’re sold a sprig at a time and proffer good luck, plus that inimitable scent those of us from the southern climes first encountered by proxy. Remember the Mattel Perfume Kiddle?
This year May 1st fell on a Tuesday. If you are not familiar with Gallic mores and manners, this detail might seem insignificant, but the French mind grasps its particular meaning rapidly and gets to work: it is time to start building bridges. A Tuesday, you see, has high “pont” (meaning bridge) potential: build a bridge from Tuesday back to Monday, and from Monday back to Sunday and, ma foi! this gangplanking constructs a four-day weekend! For workers with a nine-to-five job this bit of French engineering allows for leisurely visits to the country home or a few extra days to rest and enjoy time with the family; for parents who are free-lancers, however, it means a forced vacation when what you really need is to plug ahead. The kids are at home for 4 days running and if you try to work in your small Parisian flat, which inevitably you do because you have to move that project along, you’re liable to start beating your breast and gnashing your teeth, or popping open the dinner wine at five. Mayday! Mayday!
But this is not just about May Day, for if it were we could write it off as two lost work days in a thirty-one day month; no, there is more trouble ahead as May is ripe in “pont” possibilites. Let’s move ahead to our next holiday on May 8th marking the Allies defeat over the Nazis and the end of WWII. May 8th, also a bank holiday, lands on a Tuesday this year, raising therefore the existential question: to pont or not to pont? Mercifully my son’s school chose to maintain class on the Monday the 7th. Nevertheless, we had our son at home for two working days right smack in the middle of the week. I accomplished little on the novel front but the laundry got folded.
Now this week we’ve been hit by Ascension, a bank holiday celebrating Jesus’ ascension into Heaven following the Resurrection. This uniquely secular holiday falls, always, on a Thursday. Is your mind ticking now? Because a substantial bridge possibility is beckoning us and it just seems too good to pass up. Since children don’t go to school on Wednesdays in France, one merely needs to erect a cantilever between Thursday and Friday to create a whopping 5-day weekend. Le Week-end, c’est chouette!
OK, by this point I am waving the white flag. I’ve spent the last four and half days mostly indoors doing menial chores, unable to think in clearly constructed sentences let alone write them, while my son joyfully indulges his Star Wars Leggo fantasies for hours on end. He is creating what he calls a “saga” and it spills out of his room into the living room, under my feet in the kitchen, upon the master bed and even in the W.C. where the clones hold the toilet hostage. I’m afraid there’s no use resisting. I give up! Mayday! Mayday!
Perhaps, dear Reader, if this trussing were to stop here, at Ascension weekend, and we could bid the bascule bridge farewell, we’d have some satisfaction in knowing there were two weeks left in the month for catching up. The coast, alas, is not quite so clear, for yet another feast day approaches. Oh my God, look! Are those tongues of fire? Hark! It’s the Holy Ghost! Pentecost descends upon us next Monday, yet another secular bank holiday, providing the French with an excellent excuse to protract le week-end.
I am leaving on June 1st for a working retreat at the beguinage of Bruges. It is needed. While some nine-to-fivers find respite in May’s extended vacations, most free-lancers with children require a recovery program by the end of the month. To those of you find May as insufferable as I do: “Courage, mes amis!” Only one more Bridge of Sighs to go before June.