Low-key, solemn as can be.
Halloween suffered multiple handicaps this year. First, the gloom that makes for appropriately atmospheric backgrounds in Halloween art is simply depressing when the clouds chill and darken your real-life day. It could have been worse, of course. We’ve had prettier Halloweens that were flat-out frigid cold. In keeping with the weather patterns of A.D. 2021 in this Rocky Mountain high valley, it’s been slightly warmer than normal. Still, after an entire month of pleasantly warm, golden autumn sunshine against bottomless blue skies, this was a comedown.
Halloween not only served as the chilly, gloomy end to a long stretch of pretty days, it was also on a Sunday. Most of the big Halloween events, the Trunks or Treats (very popular in our valley this year) happened on Friday. Saturday featured some haunted houses, but except for a few holdouts, Halloween was over by Halloween. A few squads of children led by elder siblings were about Sunday night, and we got the usual three or four visits, owing to the my block having maybe five houses in total occupied and hardly worth the effort for most to make the side trip.
I’m grateful for what we had. I’m even more grateful I no longer feel as obligated to the entire Halloween experience. I’ve suffered no urges to watch seasonal horror movies or read the creepy stories, though I did make a point of reading Ray Bradbury’s 1947 classic “Homecoming” before turning out the light. I was so tired by then I almost didn’t make it through, but I’m glad I did. It was the one personal tradition of mine I observed, and perhaps the most worthy.
I couldn’t bring myself to cue up In the Court of the Crimson King: An Observation by King Crimson. This was an ancient ritual going back to 1983, but it also presumes I’ll be up all night drinking and listening to more music. By Sunday, my revels of Friday and Saturday had more than satisfied any desire to do so.
I kicked off the night with my favorite track from that album, “I Talk to the Wind,” but most of the music was the same stuff I’ve been playing since late summer and September. It wasn’t like I was staying up until midnight anyway. I rarely do so these days, even while drinking. I’ve been too old for that collegiate nonsense for years already. Hold that thought.
The next day I walked past the auto detail shop near my house and heard The Ramones’ “Pet Sematary” playing on the proprietor’s classic rock radio. I smiled and thought, thank you Lord, for helping me shake the urge to play silly songs like this just because of one night. I don’t hate this song, mind you. I’ve simply grown out of it. Maybe next year for that and Monster Magnet’s “I’ll See You in Hell” and The Ghastly Ones’ A-Haunting We Will Go-Go. I wasn’t feeling it this year.
It embarrasses me to think that there was a time in which I felt obliged to observe such rituals all month long. Towards the end I began to resent these obligations and even wished for the entire thing to be over already—for which I’d feel dutifully guilty in the end as I packed our décor boxes back into the storage shed outside. This October was special, however, because I turned a major milestone in age. I’ve spent the great bulk of the time watching the leaves change and fall, wondering if I’ll be around when the trees bud again in May.
My 50s were the virtual Valley of the Shadow of Death. I’ve lost a lot of people since 2011. I went through my own dance with cancer in 2018. Most of the people I most wanted to impress with my finished novel trilogy are gone. Now that I’m in my 60s I realize I can’t take my next birthday for granted as I did even during the mass die-off of friends and family throughout the last decade.
It’s really ha-ha funny, though. Everyone is worked up over vampires and werewolves and witches and ghosts, masked serial killers, etc. …and here I stand in the metaphorical graveyard, the shadow of my tombstone advancing slowly towards me as the sun sets upon my Divinely extended (there is no other explanation) existence upon Earth. Scarlet maple leaves spiral upwards with the golden oaks before falling softly back to the cool dark soil. I only know it’s going to be sooner rather than later.
I’ve really got to get to work finishing that final novel.
In other news, Halloween-themed eggnog is no more. The Meadow Gold folks had been trying to make autumnal eggnog a thing since at least 2007. As of 2021, they’ve finally given up. That’s a major historical milestone all its own right there. Attention must be paid.
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