Days of the dead

Tuesday was Hallowe'en - which was always my favorite holiday of the year.

Technically, Hallowe'en is based on pagan festivals celebrating the one time of the year that the spirits might be able to make contact with the physical the rest of us live in. I guess that's where the emphasis on ghosts, witches, and goblis comes from.

I didn't really get that as a kid - I wasn't scared; I just wanted to have the most original costume of anyone in my school. So, one year I was a toaster. Once I was a turtle. Another year I was a grandfather clock. Bar of Ivory soap. Cupboard.

The common element to my costumes was the cardboard box. Which was dumb, since climbing stairs to front doors around the neighborhood is almost impossible when your knees have a range of about 15 degrees from vertical.

I heard a reference to the "day of the dead" on the radio this morning: it's a very different perspective on the same idea.

Mexicans celebrate the day(s) of the dead between October 31- November 2 as a time to welcome dead relatives back into their homes and remember them.

I kind of like the visual of sitting in my living room with semitransparent versions of the people I miss, all of us drinking cups of tea...

So - while I've given up on wearing cardboard boxes, I guess I'm still not spooked out by this time of year.