As you may have noticed reading the blog or poking around on my Facebook page ( and most assuredly if you know me in the flesh so-to-speak), I'm someone who enjoys the darker things in life. Be it music, movies, art, clothes, what have you, I enjoy those diversions both superficial and serious which represent a certain aesthetic; a mood, a feeling, which says "hello death, sadness, morbidity, delirium, horror, fear, discomfort, evil, darkness, insanity. I welcome you and all your vast ilk to my table. Yes, I know you exist. I've always known. As a child I watched you do battle with your opposites in your endless game of king of the mountain, always vying for supremacy and prestige. And when the time came to 'put away childish things', I knew you were not among them, only that my child-mind perceived you that way. I know, some of my human kin choose to block you out, unsettled by the possibility of even one minute dark tendril sniffing 'round their door. Others still choose to be indifferent. I myself choose embrace, as with any primal, unchanging elemental force for which ignorance and indifference changes nothing. So come. Come inside and join my tea party. I've set out places for each of you. Now then, let's have a toast." There are more words written about the psychology of someone preoccupied with death and darkness than I care to think about. Some might say this is where I fall but I completely disagree. I celebrate life, I celebrate joy, I celebrate good feelings and happiness, love and other euphoric experiences, and the positive of the world we live in. I didn't always, and with time and maturity to soften my perspective, I'm still attracted to the darkness, but it "preoccupies" me only as much as every other thing preoccupies me, which is to say everything is a balance. Still, I do look good in black...
Where am I going with all of this? Didn't I just say in my last post I wasn't going to keep getting all serious? Well, dear readers, fear not. This isn't going where you think. Or maybe it is. This is a post about Halloween.
There's nothing more magical or delightful in terms of holidays than Halloween. For my money, there's no holiday that brings more fun and good times with as much sexy swagger than this most special time of year. And it is a special time of year. Not a day, or even a week. When October rolls around, there's just one thing on the minds of kids and adults alike, Halloween. Some deride it, mainly parents who stopped finding it an exciting time of year long ago and now only find it annoying; or Jehova's Witnesses. Many ignore it, usually the older among us whose inner child (or young adult, or 20-something adult) was suffocated somewhere around the time they stopped learning to smile and enjoy life. But for me, and legions like me, this is a favorite time of year. Sure, Thanksgiving and Christmas, even Easter, are lovely, for spending time with the family, for being thankful, for bringing joy. But this time of year is for the imp, the demon, the devil. The one that resides inside all year waiting patiently for a turn. Those cliche'd memories you have of sitting, staring out the window at a snow world full of your friends playing, parents chatting while they watch, the entire world outside having the best day ever while you sit inside with your schoolwork/fever/broken arm/...that's exactly how that little devil feels almost every day of the year until now. (Unless you're one of those people who finds ways to let him or her out as much as possible, or maybe on weekends; probably dressed in leather or something in a dungeon somewhere. Then you can ignore the context and just enjoy the writing :-) ) Who in their right mind, as straight or curvy as it may be, doesn't feel a little gleeful smile come when they think of those tokens of mind and memory that define Halloween for us? Maybe it's the yearly viewing of "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" (a life-long affair for me), perhaps memories of your first viewing of that classic slasher named for this holiday, or another horror film. Perhaps some spooky and delicious haunted house you visited. But whatever your personal memories, we ALL have those memories at the center of the joy equated (at some point in our life at least) with Halloween, trick or treating. Our favorite costumes, the candy we loved most (and hated most), the sadist fervor with which our parents would lay down the iron-fisted "fine, let's look at what you got, and then you can have 1 or 2 pieces. But only 1 or 2! I'm serious!" These memories hold so much meaning, for myself, and so many others, that they seared a love of this celebration into our collective consciousness, one that has only grown over the years to be the consuming adult version of the joy I felt as a child. Now I realize that everyone's not a clone. There are those whose childhoods were a Halloween-free universe. Now for some of these, that's perfectly fine and understandable. Culture or location, for instance, are perfectly acceptable reasons one might not be taken trick or treating or go to a Halloween party. But of course, there are much more insidious reasons one would be denied in childhood. If that's you, I'm truly sorry, for whatever you might've gone through. And for being denied something that brings such good times and joy. Of course, it's never too late. The wonderful thing about life is if you don't like the way something turned out, you can often superimpose something better on top of it. It may not undo the memories, but it might just give you something positive and fun to compete with them. And, after all, isn't that at its core the absolute purpose and mission statement of Halloween? That for a brief time, we can be something else, anything else, we want and really embrace reinventing ourselves, as simply, complexly, profoundly or superficially as our imaginations allow? Yes. Yes it is. And, of course, to get a little crazy, a little scared, find ourselves a sexy little devil to sidle up to our own little demon, socialize, entertain ourselves viewing the pageantry, and stuff as much damn candy as we can get down our gullets for a brief moment of excess and decadence? Yes again. Yes, this day, this month, this time of year, mean so many different things to me. Old traditions. New experiences that become old traditions. Memories. Rituals. Fun. And finding some good old-fashioned fog-swirled spookyness to make me jump back a little. Because that little imp finally snuck past you and got out again. Just around the next dark corner. And boy do they want a word with you...
Have a sweet for me, and a scream to wash it down with.
Until next time my ghosts and ghouls...
