May the 4th Be With You

This is the day in Golden Week that for many years was a holiday simply by virtue of the fact that it lay between two other holidays.  

What do you do with a holiday of no significance?  So often we have holidays that have a significance that has been assigned to them in the past, but that in practice has long been forgotten.  Perhaps it becomes an excuse just to have a holiday.  But what to make of a Holiday Holiday?   Are we reflecting on the nature of "time off?" Is there an exponential increase to the benefit of holidays by having just one more?  What is the value of a holiday, even a singular one of a less "meta" significance?  How do we spend "free" time?  Does it change the way we spend time when we are not on holiday?

But as it turns out, we need not think about this anymore.  Since 2007 this holiday of holidays has been bestowed with additional significance in its own right as Greenery Day.  And so today, an invitation to appreciate the beautiful the spring weather and new life that has started to grow around us.  The flowers, the newly budding leaves, even the clouds of gnats that serve as an unexpected appetizer on a bike ride home.  Nature is everywhere and today is the day to make note of it.  How many things come and go?  Whether it is nature, or the nature of time itself, it can be good to take a moment to reflect on the things that seem to be with us all the time.   One day they are here, and the next perhaps not.