No children to take out trick or treating, and it’s likely we won’t see any coming by the house this year because it’s going to be downright frigid where I am in Colorado. Ah, well. It’s been a long, difficult road to Over It.
You’d think a horror fiction writer, zombie post-apocalypse division, would be more into the Halloween aesthetic, with photos of my decorations and morbid musings, etc., posted every day. I’d have thought so, too. I’m not crazy about the fact that my last half-dozen posts have been old geezer griping about who-cares-what, but that’s how it turned out.
My enthusiasm for Halloween has dialed back considerably since 2007, my last good year for trick-or-treating with one of my children. I hasten to add it wasn’t just my children aging out of walking around the neighborhood with their old man. The housing crisis and recession that followed began making their presence known in Colorado Springs after 2007. There was a vast difference in the mood of the people we saw in 2007 and 2008. People were happy and sharing rum shots with attendant parents from folding tables set up in the cul-de-sacs in ‘07. In ‘08 they scowled from behind closed doors.
It was in 2010 that my 17-year-old daughter, taking pity on my poor depressed carcass, slapped a full-size rubber skull mask on me and took me out trick-or-treating for the last time ever. There were a few moments out there, especially when it got thick with children on that one street and it looked like the spirit was back, if only on that one street.
Overall, though, the joy was gone. After that I resigned myself to staying home and passing out candy. It was a difficult transition, to say the least. Like everything else about my children’s growing up, I took the loss of Halloween badly.
As for reading and writing macabre fiction, I do that year-round. The month of October doesn’t make it any more special. I used to make a point of reading favorite stories from Ray Bradbury’s The October Country, “The Wind,” “The Scythe,” The Lake,” and especially “Homecoming” on Halloween night. After a while, it felt simply repetitive. The psychic gum was losing its flavor.
The same happened to a lot of the music I listen to. I still play In the Court of the Crimson King: An Observation by King Crimson throughout the month, but it’s no longer how I open my All Hallow’s Eve drinking session. Like all of my “traditions,” it just came off forced. I didn’t want to resent the season—any season, for that matter—feeling forced to do things simply because that’s we’ve always done.
My wife still decorates with a different mix from our many boxes of seasonal decor every year. I’m content with that. I delight to see the younger children who show up for candy. I’ve trended hard towards the happy and wholesome aspect of those three to four hours of evening. I don’t even feel an urge to watch a horror movie when its done. Just groove to the orange and purple lights, and hope these children I saw who said “trick or treat” and “thank you” in their cute little voices have many happy Halloweens to come.
Afterwards, I’ll go upstairs, turn on the music, crack some beers, maybe get some writing done. Like any other night, except I’ll have some candy and pretzels with the beer. I’ll also look forward to hearing the melancholy woodwinds of King Crimson’s “I Talk to the Wind” at some point before I turn in. That much is indispensable. It is, dare I say, haunting.
It’s not that I’ve lost the ability to take pleasure in the season. I’m just not forcing it. My party days are well behind me. Also, at this late point in my life, I have ghosts to last the year. I speak to them in my office every night. Here’s to all those people I know on the other side of the veil between worlds. Maybe I’ll see some of you in costume tonight.
As for the rest of you, you know the drill. Don’t drink and drive, etc. And Happy Halloween.
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