Notes from Maine - 2021/10/31
Happy Halloween!
Even when I was a little kid, I was convinced that a Halloween costume should be scary. I don’t remember who pushed that idea on me, but it stuck. Maybe it was an original thought, or a buried instinct. I’ve been reading about Samhain—a Celtic festival where people would wear costumes and light bonfires in order to frighten ghosts back to their own domain. I’m not seeing a good explanation of why dressing up as a demon would frighten a ghost.
I was the youngest kid in my family. I had no agency to get things on my own. Being able to go out into the world and approach houses of strangers, and then come away with a treat, was like having a super power. I can’t remember my early costumes, but at one point Mom helped me put together a winning combination. I had a skull mask with an articulated jaw. It was greenish-yellow with red lines streaking away from the center and exposed white teeth. I wore a hooded cape that Mom must have made, and I carried a whip.
For years, it was my default costume. Even when my head was big enough that the mask hurt to wear, I would walk around with that thing for hours. I guess I was a demon? The costume didn’t have a name, but I think it was reasonably scary.
I don’t keep much stuff from when I was a kid around my house, but there’s one thing that would be fun to look at again. It was another Halloween tradition. In the linen closet, Mom kept our Halloween candles. My brother’s was a spooky ghost, my sister had a witch, and mine was a skeleton in a black coffin. Searching online, I just found a coffin candle that melts to reveal a skeleton inside. I might have to get one of those. It looks fun.
At some point, I went from being terrified of spooky stuff to not being able to get enough of it. What causes that transition? If I had to guess, I suppose that I wanted to take control of something that had control over me. A few years old, I was crying in the haunted house at the boardwalk in Ocean City. They had to let me out through the emergency exit. Later, after everyone else grew jaded and tired of that kind of attraction, it was all I wanted to do. I still go to haunted houses most years. It’s fun to imagine that an actual killer is mingling with the costumed staff, murdering the guests.
As far as I can tell, the process of aging involves an involuntary dulling of every sense, until we’re just drifting through a sea of blandness. Anything that can make our heart race, even for a moment, is a welcome distraction.
A couple of years ago, I wrote one of my favorite books. I don’t mean one of my favorite books of all the books that have been written by anyone. I’m just saying that I think it’s one of my best. The book is called Until the Sun Goes Down, and it has a couple of sequels. For me, that book was about someone trying on different costumes, attempting to reposition themselves in life. They change their location, and their job. They attempt to be a “good person” by helping a stranger after a stranger helps them. The book is about transformations—good and bad.
