cannot explain the feeling this day brings. It started when I was a child, and in my tiny private school amid southeastern Virginias farms and fields, the mothers of the twenty or so students in my class would sign-up at the beginning of the year for which holiday party theyd furnish. Maybe because my birthday was exactly a week later, maybe because it was the first party of the year and she wanted to get it out of the way, maybe because she liked playing dress-up herself, My Mom was always at the Halloween party. I remember one year, she came dressed as a gypsy, and I was so startled by how beautful she looked that I almost started to cry. She and our next-door neighbors mom often spent hours and countless dollars creating costumes; I think there were years when I dressed as one thing to school, then went trick-or-treating as something different. We lived in a neighborhood built when a local farmer decided to sell a chunk of his land; youd turn off the highway and drive a mile down this narrow, winding road, and suddenly, there were houses, mostly brick and very traditional colonial-style, built around four streets, each measuring about 0.1 mile, which formed a rectangle wth a cul-de-sac off of each corner. There always seemed to be a pack of us going together, with parents standing behind as we rang doorbells and received candy, cookies, fruit. One year, I fell going down a neighbors steps and landed on their lawn, which was some sort of grass which produced burrs that stuck in my hands for what seemed ages afterward. After going around the block, Mom and Dad would drive me over to see both sets of my grandparents, who lived maybe three miles away, leaving candy for kids who stopped by while we were out in a large plastic jack-o-lantern next to the real one (which Dad and I might have carved a few days earlier, and which I always thought was the coolest one in the neighborhood when lit with a candle inside) on the front porch. I would have been reading ghost-stories for weeks prior in anticipation, and sometimes, Id be allowed to stay up late watching scary movies after we got back home. Mom and I would decorate the house toward the beginning of the month, and I was always sad to take things down the after the day was over, but the house had to be immaculate for my birthday party (and my great-grandmothers) a week later. Trick-or-treating stopped after I was eleven, I think, but I continued wearing some sort of costume (It was the one day each year I felt I could dress like a freak wth impunity) throughout high-school, then began throwing a costumed party for the occasion every year at Yale. Its hard to believe the red-lit picture on my profile today was taken ten years ago. I think that was the last time I dyed my hair (it was the year I bought the fancy fangs, which were lost my second year in NYC, when I had a gig singing barbershop with a few of the other Trinity guys at a massive party headlined by none other than the World/Inferno Friendship Society out in Red Hook), but the clothes (and yes, that infamous black velvet cape, lined with red satin) are still in my closet...Plus ça change, plus ça reste...
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:21:18 +0000
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