Halloweening

Yesterday, the air was the perfect temperature. The sun was warm but not the brutal and burning type it has been all summer. I decided to put out my Halloween decorations and enjoy the day.

I love Halloween. Christmas is my favorite holiday, but Halloween runs a close second. I love the fun of it. I love the simple, inner-child pleasure of candy and safe thrills. I love putting up the pumpkins around my door, hanging the ghosts in my driveway, and watching parents with their kids in the store deciding whether this year's costume will be the princess or the witch.

Even in our increasingly homogenized world, most cultures have a holiday that deals with fears and concerns about death and grief for those who have departed. Japan has Obon, Mexico has Dia de los Muertos, and we have Halloween. That part of the holiday fascinates me, too. It is so important for us to have that connection to those who are gone, and even though we don't use Halloween in a ceremonial way anymore, the haunted houses, plastic phantoms, and carved pumpkins still represent a way of dealing with the fear of the unknown that comes with death. We learn as children, even in a very softened way, that death doesn't have to be something of which we need be afraid.

I have loved Halloween since I was a child. We used to have the best Halloween carnivals at school. I remember walking through the sixth-grade building's haunted house, riding around the playground on a hay wagon, and winning endless little bags of prizes with my friends. There was nothing fancy about it, but just being there with the costumes and the cooling weather was special.

My mom and I used to hang the same cardboard decorations on the windows every year, and so looked forward to the day when Mom would say it was time to get them out and hang them up. We also bought plastic ghosts and pumpkins and hung them on the trees lining our driveway. Coming home was a thrill as the headlights caught those silly, smiling plastic figures. It was special to me, and it still is.

For the remainders of the month, I will have the same thrill as an adult. Whenever I come home late from school, my plywood copies of those same silly smiles will be there to cheer me. The plastic pumpkins around my schoolroom door will keep me company as I work late to get papers graded and recorded. I will feed that six-year-old who still lives inside me and enjoy it.