The New Jersey Devil

And to think I once rolled my eyes when Lonnie posted pages full of video.

Happy Allison's Least Favorite Holiday

Though the sugar skulls for el dia de los muertos are kinda cool.

In my town, the witching hour is six o'clock, and not just on the last day of October. Ease off the interstate around that time, and one best be prepared for the last mile of the day to drain the last ounce of patience as every last commuter seems to descend home in a swarm. Tonight, however, the streets in front of the strip malls and big boxes were so empty that I'll even call it eerie in honor of the day. As I wound past the series of subdivisions between my house and the main road, I searched for trick-or-treaters but didn't spy a one. Where was everyone but me? My money says downtown at the parade.

It's the kind of thing that makes me glad to live here, in a town that's still a town, and I admit to a twinge of disappointment that our girl scouts didn't participate this year for reasons unknown to me. I mean, I almost went alone. It's just a parade, but it's a good one, a 90-year old one, with an ancient PA announcer and a long-established route, and I like to sit on the courthouse steps and watch the politickers and the band kids, the families and the floats. It's the kind of thing I'd like to bring Juan to, when he says things like this so dismissively:

"America is too new. You can't believe anything here."

To be fair, it was an insightful answer, actually , Juan's el dia de los muertos explanation of why it makes sense to believe in ghosts in Mexico but not, in his experience, here. It's all about family and real spirits, he says, not monsters and pretend. When a family home has been occupied for generations, he tells me, in so many words, someone is more likely to be left behind. "It's part of the culture," someone adds, and he tells his ghost story for a minute, engaged in the topic and connected to home. But, and here's my catch, I know he doesn't really believe there's any place so deserving in America, any place with enough history or community to count. The U.S. is cheap apartments and trailer parks as far as he can see. And the nice houses, they're new, and the families? Who knows. The aisles at Wal-Mart. Restaurant kitchens. The images on TV. That's so much of the United States to him, and we both bristle at the thought.

My late October tradition, of course, wouldn't mean much of anything to this thoughtful teenager, but it might feel more real than the brittle plastic America that he's mostly seen so far. Though, I don't know, probably it wouldn't. "Why do you people do it that way?" is always the cross-cultural subtext, and this kid's been half in a culture shock funk for a year. The same way he wishes he were back home, I wish he could see there is something to America, something he's still missing. Why do I care? Same reason he does. It's just mine, and I want him to get it. Maybe I just want it to be true. Though if he persists with this "too new" to matter meme, I guess I could call in Angela from China and have her tell him a thing or two about old.

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.