Halloween Fun For Big Cats

Fall Back

It is no longer a question of whether or not to wear a coat, but rather, which coat or jacket will suffice. Colored leaves obliterate the ground and clog drains, brown mum blossoms are frozen in time like Vesuvius victims, the furnace is kicking on with regular frequency, and my ice scraper has been put into active duty. The final assurance that autumn is in control and swiftly moving toward winter is the approach of Halloween and the end of Daylight Savings Time. Oddly enough, this year they both occur today.

Judging from last night and today’s balmy 50 degree temperature, we may experience a break in the usual inclement weather tradition of Halloween in my neck of the woods. In Eastern Oregon it is customary for children and their parents to have to trudge around the neighborhood in foul weather on Halloween night. The deceptive sunshine of a fall afternoon does not fool the natives. Our trick-or-treating children are well padded beneath their oversized costumes in layers of sweats and coats. Even fairy princesses wear snow boots and mittens. It isn’t Halloween if a little skeleton’s rain-sodden cardboard bones aren’t falling off or Superman, the scarecrow, and the princess don’t have to navigate around snow banks and icy steps to get to each door.

I have never cared much for this holiday. Carving pumpkins is messy, building costumes took more imagination than I’ve ever possessed, and going from car to house to car, loading and unloading excited children with barely-held-together attire without losing a costume part, a child, or my sanity was nothing to look forward to. More than once I asked myself why we did this, but I know for certain it was only because of those little faces who couldn’t believe they were getting a bagful of treats for no reason at all. Visualizing them standing at a trusted neighbor’s door in their bedraggled outfit, saying the magic words (or, in Sarah’s case, stubbornly NOT saying them but flashing a dimpled smile as the candy is dropped into her pumpkin anyway), was all it took. And now that my kids are grown and gone, that is the part I miss. The only part. The happy faces at the end of the evening.

So, I wish good luck and good weather to all those parents and goblins heading out tonight with their costumes, goody bags, and flashlights. I will enjoy you all from the warmth of my living room as you come to my door and I will wish you a safe, dry, happy hallowed eve as I drop the best candy treats into your sacks (no healthy disappointment here). Take care, stay warm, and remember to push your clocks back an hour when you get home. You’ll need the extra sleep.

FALLing

According to the calendar, there is one more week until the official first day of autumn, but the signs of its approach are undeniably already here. Daylight starts earlier and fades sooner, early mornings are cold enough for a jacket, school buses are once again making their daily runs, the hummingbird feeders have been thoroughly rejected, my fall bulbs have poked their noses through the ground, and the maize of the harvested wheat fields has over-ripened into a burnished gold. One of the things I love about this area is that we experience all four of Earth’s seasons, but I do hate to see my favorite one end.

This cycle of seasons parallels life, of course, and autumn seems to be the season of letting go, something with which I struggle. Whether it is letting go of growing children, aging parents, or lazy summer days, I fight the inevitable for as long as I can. Yes, I understand that life, especially new life, depends upon death and dormancy; I, too, have read The Giving Tree. However, it is much more satisfying to wax philosophically about it while lounging at a safe distance in a deck chair with a cold lemonade in my hand on a warm July day than when I feel the nearness of its cold breath seeping down my neck.

Herein lies my greatest error: the tendency to waste the precious little time that is left to me by fretting about what might be approaching. Therefore, I am hereby documenting these seasonal changes with a determined fearlessness about what is to come because I am determinedly devoted to enjoying what has not yet passed. I will take time to marvel at the last fingers of golden sunshine that bathe the still golden hills, feel the luxuriance of the grass under my bare feet as I walk across my tender lawn, and treasure the simple things we can still do together. After these fade into fall I will content myself with different colors, joys, and traditions, knowing that a new summer will come again in time.