Today is my birthday.
I have never considered myself a “summer baby”, despite the fact that the Gregorian date of September 8th isn’t quite autumn. To me, September means fall, no matter what society or the temperature have to say about it.
My Halloween soul has always felt fortunate that my birthday falls when it does. Despite the fact that, in childhood, my birthday also meant the start of the school year, my compensation for that was the fact that it also meant the start of what’s now referred to as “spooky season”.
When I was younger, I obviously wasn’t able to stalk the stores for Halloween decor in the same way that I do now. I have no recollection of ever really seeing Halloween decor on shelves before September until I was almost fourteen. So, my birthday truly felt like the start of Halloween season, as if the entire world was giving me a two-month long gift.
As money started coming in the mail from extended family, it gave me comfort to know that the next time I saw a Halloween decoration in a store, perhaps I could buy it. Even if I was out shopping, with my mother or grandfather or an aunt, and had no money of my own, I knew I could use my birthday as a bargaining chip to purchase something spooky. Sometimes I wonder if my childhood collection would’ve been quite as big if it hadn’t been for the way my birthday falls. Not to say that I never spent my birthday money on, or received a gift that was, something “normal”, but having such a small window of opportunity to shop for it, most of my extra money always went toward Halloween.
When I was very young, the colors I associated with my birthday were pink and blue. This was most likely due to pink and blue kitten and puppy wrapping paper at the first birthday party I have a real memory of. (We actually hung a piece of it on the refrigerator and I, who was turning four, I believe, held up the old house phone in the kitchen to the fridge, thinking my aunt could see it through the phone!) This has remained, to a degree, through my adult years, but as I’ve gotten older, when I think of my birthday, after that initial memory of pink and blue and the smell of candles being blown out, I see shades of autumn, as if I’m standing at the edge of my favorite time of year.
I don’t really remember what I used to wish for on my birthday candles. Most likely some sort of toy or to meet a favorite celebrity or something. (I do have one distinct memory of wishing for a stuffed animal of the dog, Nuzzle, from the old children’s TV series The Puzzle Place, and not getting it until a few years ago when one of my best friends, with whom the story had become a running joke, sent me one dressed in a pumpkin costume!) But I realize now that there is no greater wish fulfillment than the magic that comes every year on the heels of my day of birth, the beginning of the season that makes my soul shine brighter than the candles on any cake ever could.
Stay spooky, my friends.
Happy belated B-day!
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