Spirits who move me,and don't

I hate Halloween.

That's my standard refrain this time of year, my not-gonna, can't make me, moving-on, moving-on, but really, I just don't care. As a kid Halloween was about choosing a costume idea then enduring as my talented yet obsessive and perfectionist parents carried it out (we're nothing alike). Not fun. For the candy, of course, I guess I thought it was worth it, and maybe the shot at the all-school prize (Blair Elementary, Most Beautiful, 1977).

I'm plenty old enough to buy my own candy, to declare myself beautiful, or, if I wanted or were so invited, to go be someone else for a night. So, eh, what's Halloween to me? Only my daughter's most favorite day of the year, the universe being so jammed full of irony you'd think Alanis would have understood what it meant. Three days and counting 'til the big day is here, and she's already been trick or treating twice. I'm just glad the store-bought costumes have evolved as much as they have; otherwise we'd all be in last-minute creativity hell. As it is our pre-fab woodland fairy is content with her road-tested get-up, and I'm more than happy to swallow each and every one of my rants and reservations about some ridiculously named event (Trunk or Treat? do they kidnap for fun?) to leave her with her participating grandparents and go have a ghoul-free evening with friends. Her dad and I did walk the girl and a friend through the downtown merchants' candy giveaway earlier, and I'll do the real trick or treating Tuesday (the 90th annual parade is the 31st; nobody'll be home then), but to escape the trumped-up Halloween trifecta? Hallelujah!

And a bigger hallelujah to the serendipity of life. While our host is a progressive baseball fan with whom I always have fun, he's also one more example of the phenomenon which both fascinates me and makes me grateful. I only know him from being in some random place at some random time. He's an art teacher,who, by the teachers' cliquey code, should only know other artists. But, as an ESL teacher then as itinerant as my students, I was stuck in a neighboring art room part-time once for a while. It was a temporary assignment to a terrible room that never should have been mine, but, years later, we're still friends. This is kind of a theme in my life. And everyone's I suppose, though the importance of seating charts in determining whom I know just compels me. Perhaps I should be more careful in arranging my classes. Another friend--the one I've known for 20 years now because of where we sat one quarter-sees larger spirits moving, and maybe there are. But, even this week, they are not spooky. Powerful, for sure. But, as far as I can tell, working only for good.