Masks

The fall colors are turning fiery, the autumn wind is blowing ("O, wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being"--Shelley), and my Halloween cookies are baked. This, then, is my Halloween post. I'm always bemused by Halloween. As a kid, all I had to do was dive in and enjoy it, which I did. Once you grow up, and going around asking people for candy (with every expectation that they'll give it to you) is no longer an option, your choices, in my opinion, are much less satisfying.

You can become the kind of adult who goes to costume parties cleverly attired as a zombie or a politician and stands around drinking spiked punch, or you can be the kind that sets out spooky and/or humorous yard displays and hands out candy to the kids. There's also a third set of options if you're like me and live in an apartment building that doesn't get pint-sized trick-or-treaters or offer any lawn decoration opportunities--in which case, you can either do nothing, watch a scary movie, set out a themed candle or candy dish, or bake cookies in Halloween shapes. Since your actual responsibilities are zilch, any degree of participation is up to you. 

I usually just think about how much I enjoyed Halloween as a kid, feel a bit nostalgic, and eat some cookies (I used to set out a "pumpkin" candle holder, but I think it's in the back of the cabinet somewhere). I'm guessing that most people with kids at home re-live their childhood memories by making Halloween fun for their own children, and that sounds to me like a reasonable way to approach things. 

Many people will disagree with me on this, but I'm not really a fan of adults dressing up as ghouls and things on Halloween. One of the things I remember about childhood Halloweens was that the fun was anchored in a sense of safety. You were wandering around outside after dark in a way you never would normally, dressed as someone you definitely were not, tripping over your hem and wearing a mask, and there was certainly something at large, a special Halloween spookiness. Then you'd knock on someone's door and a solid and ordinary-looking adult that you'd seen dozens of times would answer with a bag of Butterfingers or boxes of Milk Duds, reminding you that no matter how thin the membrane between ordinary reality and the otherworld on All Hallows Eve, you could reach out and touch normal reality at any time. When there are too many big people running around in masks, it starts to seem more like real pandemonium.

I have a prejudice against masks. I was thinking about this the other night and how much in the minority I may be on the issue when I happened to read, in a memoir, about someone else's distaste for masks in the context of her visit to Venice. I think my dislike stems from the knowledge that the human face itself is a mask par excellence, requiring much skill and patience to read. If the human countenance is already a disguise (and I admit that it may sometimes be a protective disguise--a necessary thing), adding additional layers of covering seems to complicate reality a bit too much. It's a little like Inception, the movie in which dream architects find a way to enter into and function in alternative layers of consciousness, making base-level reality difficult to ascertain after a while. Which face is really yours, this one or that one?

I'm not against costumes, though. Who doesn't like to dress up? My idea of fun would be to separate the adult festivities from the children's on All Hallows, so that the adults were there to supervise the kids on Halloween and then had their own parties on All Saint's or All Soul's day. I could see saying something like, "OK, the theme is the Eighteenth Century." Or possibly, "Come as your favorite character from either Shakespeare or Mark Twain. Interpret this any way you like--only no masks." I think the fun of seeing people caught in an out-of-context sartorial challenge would be much greater than trying to figure out who's behind what mask.

You'd always have to keep a few straw hats or jerkins on hand for people who showed up without one, and you'd have the burden of trying to figure out what kind of food to serve to people dressed up as Mozart or Martha Washington. But it would be worth it, wouldn't it?

Reason for the Season

The weather's been veering, as it does in October. You get the feeling, with the way the wind changes, that Mary Poppins could drop in any minute. Yesterday, snow was in the forecast for the evening. I didn't see any, but apparently a little fell overnight, though not enough to show for much. I was trying to imagine what an autumn day would look like with flaming orange, red, and yellow leaves glowering under a layer of snow, but we didn't get to find out.

This conjured up an incongruous but picturesque image, like the time I was in Berkeley in the fall and walked down a neighborhood street where deciduous trees shedding leaves alternated with ever-blooming varieties and bright fruits and flowers that seemed to belong to spring and summer. The effect reminded me a little bit of a painting I've seen in which a motley group of buildings, including an Egyptian pyramid, a Greek temple, and a Gothic cathedral, are all lumped together in a fantasy spot by the sea: it's more or less impossible, unless you're in Disneyland, but it's fun to look at. (The painting is Thomas Cole's The Architect's Dream.) That street, where three seasons seemed to coexist at once, was a little like that. All that was missing was a snowdrift.

But I'm digressing. I was really thinking about an article I once read in The Old Farmer's Almanac about something called cross-quarter days, of which yesterday, October 31, is one. The others occur on February 2, May 1, and August 1. These originated in British and Celtic customs, and the article explained how other traditions, enduring even in America, are attached to these dates, which divide the intervals between the quarter days (the two solstices and equinoxes) in half.

October 31 is All Hallow's Eve (Celtic Samhain), February 2 is Candlemas (Celtic Imbolc), May 1 is May Day (Celtic Beltane), and August 1 is Lammas (Celtic Lughnasadh). Most people are aware of the connection between Halloween and the Celtic traditions relating to the dead; American customs like pumpkin-carving and trick-or-treating have their counterparts in Samhain. What I didn't know was that other customs, like Election Day--which seems totally unrelated to Halloween--are actually a part of this post-harvest celebration. What better time to hold elections than when all the work in the fields is over?

Our version of Candlemas is Groundhog Day, when we're looking forward to the spring equinox still some six weeks away (and trying to hurry it along). Less well-known (at least to me) was the Celtic Imbolc, which refers to sheep and lambs, whose season is the latter part of winter. Even I, a town girl, was able to make a connection to this ancient tradition when I remembered a college roommate, an agriculture major, who was always getting up in the middle of those frozen February nights to check on ewes about to give birth. It sure didn't sound like something I wanted to do in the wee hours of a cold, dark month, but I suspect your perspective is different if you're a farmer.

Beltane, of course, is May Day, a spring and fertility celebration. We don't do much with May Poles and mummers, but in Kentucky, we hold the Derby on the first Saturday in May, a bourbon- and equine-infused version of a spring fling, complete with elaborate hats. Lammas or Lughnasadh, probably not that well known in America, signals the start of the harvest and early crops. The thing to do on that day might be to bake a loaf of bread or a fruit pie. Lughnasadh commemorates the Celtic god Lugh, whose emblem was a spear that supposedly always hit its mark. (I've forgotten why he's celebrated in August, but I do remember once knocking on my ceiling with a broom handle to alert a noisy neighbor and later laughing when I realized it was August 1, the day of Lugh. A broom handle isn't much like a spear unless you're annoyed, I guess.)

This cross-quarter weekend, we're celebrating Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls Days, changing from Daylight Time to Standard Time, and getting ready for Election Day on Tuesday. In calendrical terms there's quite a bit going on, which might explain the restless energy in the air (it could also be the zing of unseen money changing hands as candidates continue to vy for votes).

If it's any consolation, the next time you're annoyed by a robocall or political advertisement, or if you forget to change your clock and end up at work an hour early on Monday, or if you get indigestion from too much Halloween candy, just think about being part of a tradition that stretches back to ancient times and started on the other side of the sea. Young or old, tricker or treater, candidate or voter, we each have our part to play. Exciting, isn't it?