Halloween Days, P1
We Begin A Look Back, And Ahead, At This Haunting Time
Happy Halloween Day By Dayers!
As I stood up high on my library’s septic mound a couple days ago watching the dozens of families wander around our Halloween Story Trail on the way to meeting our resident witch, I began to think back on just how much I’ve written about the season of spooks over the years.
(By the way, our resident witch is kids author Naomi Fredette who wrote the absolutely charming picture book, Ellie the Skelly. Witchy Naomi was set up at the end of the trail to greet kids, hand out candy and do readings and story-time.)
Having a little kid - not to mention a creative wife - makes Halloween more than just a season of spooks and haunts. There’s something more of a connection now, a closer tie to my own past and horror movies and all that baggage of being a kid and a writer. The veils are lifted for this short period. We’re closer to the abyss. It’s easier to be reflective, to consider, well, it all.
So, for the next few days I figured we’d look back, and look ahead, through the lens of All Hallows’ Eve. Some new, some old, some old but never published. Days of remembrance. A time to not be too serious. Days of connections to our ancestors. Let’s see where this takes us, shall we?
And we’d love for all of you to tell us any memories you might have of Halloween growing up. Favorite costume? Least favorite? What’s your favorite candy? Let us know. Meantime, let’s begin at the beginning. Enjoy our look back at the spookiest of seasons.
LADYBUG (2016)
On the evening that the barriers between the living and the dead are at their weakest - when the souls of the past are close at hand - my baby girl is a ladybug. I consider this relationship for a moment as Baby U steps timidly to her first few doors, holding out her little plastic bucket, watching as strangers swoon over her outfit, showering her with candy. Ladybugs are talismen of safety and protection, and here she is amidst the ghouls, ninjas, goblins and ghosts - fearless.
The author Nicholas Gordon wrote that "Halloween wraps fear in innocence, as though it were a slightly sour sweet, let terror, then, be turned into a treat..." This is a day of fears, of course, but also of taking the darkness of the soul and transmuting those emotions into not just innocence, but sweetness.
She runs back to me, squealing in delight, oblivious to the darkness, clutching a handful of candy. "Lolli," she says, "Lolli!" and holds up a a bright orange lollipop - holds it above her head, a burning flame warding off the demons, a sugary exclamation point daring the darkness to transgress. She’s a ladybug with her sword and her smile and nothing - yet - but wonder to shield her. I pull her close and hold her hand a little more tightly as we make our way to the next door, and the next...
ENCHANTMENT (2017)
There exists a painting of a meadow fairy by the 19th Century French artist Sophie Anderson with the curious title: Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things.
I adore that title.
I think of this painting as I dress you for Halloween – your yellow wings tight against your shoulders, velvet dress smoothed down to your knees like spilling lavender, on your head a crown of wild color, like the butterfly crown of the Fairy Queen in the painting.
You shake in anticipation. Do you think you can fly, flit from stoop to stoop, collecting sugar instead of pollen?
You are joy incarnate - embodiment of light and of myth.
You are Tywyth Teg.
You are Gans.
You are Kachina.
You are Yakshini.
You are an Angel. Too mischievous for Heaven, too grand for Hell.
How can a Tootsie Roll or Smarties do you justice? You deserve better, made as you are of the most beautiful things.
Perhaps a Snickers would do.
MADMEN AND WARRIORS (2018)
In a front yard cemetery, where plastic skeletal hands burst up from plastic RIP graves, you approach a terrifying, slow moving nun. She is cloaked in black, her hands horribly deformed, her face a smear of white paint and sunken eyes. She turns her head toward you, like in slow motion, stoops down to eye level, and says “Well, what have we here?”
You don't even flinch. You hold your treat bag in front of you like a sword, like the pounds of sugar is a shield, like you are a fairy that slays evil nuns. You yell “Trick or treat” and it's a hex. A curse. A rejoinder that you have arrived to claim this Day of the Dead as your own, as only a child can.
I watch this transaction with acute interest – innocent fairy and fallen nun – on this day when the boundaries between the dead and the living are thin as tissue paper, and I'm lost in a haze of melancholy; of memories of the souls who will be remembered in the days ahead and of the fortunes foretold in the divinations of the little kids wandering the neighborhood dressed as madmen and warriors.
We are surrounded, my child, overcome, awash, in the slipstream of time – a direct line between jack-o'-lanterns made of carved turnips and carried by children to scare away the witches, and the light up flower head band you wear and bubble-making wand you hold, tools then as they are now designed to proclaim your place as a keeper of tradition, a holy prophet of the streets and a collector of all that is sweet.
In the Book of Wisdom, the part of the Bible traditionally used during the commemoration of All Souls' Day, there's a line that goes something like this, “In the memory of virtue there is immortality.”
In the contest of virtue, little one, even the evil nun can't break you. You smile, she laughs, she gives you an extra piece of candy and all the skeletons clap their hands and the lost souls are found and the air crackles with immortality.
We are all lost, we are all found, we tremble in the night and find comfort in the light, where the glow of the orange, flickering Halloween lights reflect off the shiny candy wrappers and set your eyes on fire.
Tomorrow, Part 2: “Give ‘Em All The Candy They Want.” We hope you’ll join us, and help us spread the word!
Your stories fill me with the gentle flame on a bonfire on Halloween night.
The only clear memory I have of Halloween is going trick-or-treating for UNICEF with my little orange UNICEF box. One woman told me not to yell. (I was very excited about helping UNICEF.) Put a real damper on the day.