Well, this was a fun Halloween. I spent the evening sitting in my front yard under the full moon instead of running to the door to meet the trick or treaters. I had a tiny grill in which I had a tiny fire burning and blankets and beach chairs. Basically I just burnt twigs, pinecones and pine needles. I love fires. The smell was wonderful. The kids and parents hung around a bit instead of the usual candy grab and run to the next house move. We had actual conversations.
Conversations with friends and strangers just seem to be more common in general now. We all seem to feel a need to connect. Perhaps that was my motivation in building my little campfire, to draw my "tribe" into my little imaginary circle of protection. Symbolic themes seem to permeate life these days. It has been about 6 weeks since the 9-11 attack but we are still assimilating.
Our local talk radio has been droning on and on with speculation about "Is Halloween more dangerous this year because of the increased security alert warnings?" 9-11 has affected us in so many ways, large and small, but this particular idea seems pretty silly to me. The kids are spread out, they are not concentrated in any one area. My subjective reaction is that it feels most dangerous to be in areas of concentrated humanity right now. Most years the radio is full of warnings about dangerous costumes or unescorted children and that parents should inspect all candy. Suddenly this year, the big worry is terrorists will somehow be able to net all the trick or treaters? It just doesn't make sense. I need this constant news coverage and speculation about the next disaster to stop. The last few months have been so full of family/friend sickness/death and and universal disaster. I'm just ready to move on with life and I don't want endless speculation about what else could go wrong.
We have a lot of kids dressed up as Harry Potter this year. Harry Potter has been very good for me, a distraction and an escape....I'm glad I started reading the series later than most so still have a few books to look forward to.