Evolution//October 129th, 2021

 (As a preface to this entry, I’m going to strongly suggest reading this entry first.)

Every one of my Halloween decorations had a life of its own when I was a kid. It didn’t matter how big or how small, what its function was meant to be; even the faceless, real pumpkins were more than just decor. It’s highly likely that I even named the cornstalks tied to the mailbox. I treated each Halloween season like different installments in a movie franchise, or different volumes of a book series. The decorations would come out of their box and immediately begin going on all sorts of adventures, even if only in my own mind. No one was ever left out.

To this day, when choosing items for my collection, I drift toward the things I immediately see a personality in. I’ve been told that I’m good at “capturing the souls” of the items I photograph, and that is because I truly see them. Even if I can’t always put things into words right away, I can assure you, I always see the personalities of my pumpkins and other Halloween friends. There is not a single item among my current collection that doesn’t evoke some kind of emotion in me. I feel connected to each and every piece, as if I’m their conduit somehow in the conscious world. 

I think this may be the main reason why it was so difficult for me to choose from those cupcakes picks in the post I linked to. They certainly weren’t just cupcake picks to me. I looked at them, when my mother brought them home from the store that day, an immediately connected to them. They may have just looked like tiny, impaled heads, but my mind gave them bodies and personalities and voices. They were so much more to me than what the average eye could see, and so I spent significant amounts of time, even after ultimately choosing the witch, wondering if I’d made the right decision and still wishing desperately that I could’ve kept them all. To me, that witch was always a displaced member of a group. 

 A few nights ago, the cupcake picks randomly appeared in a dream I was having, which was mainly about walking to my aunt’s house, from my childhood home, in the snow with no shoes. Somewhere during the course of my visit, I discovered racks full of cake decorations in one of her cabinets, and lo and behold, among them were my long-lost kindergarten cupcake pick friends. I woke up in the middle of frantically trying to gather one of each (and a few others that looked Rosbro-inspired) and wondered to myself if it was finally time to purchase myself a set.

The cupcake picks actually aren’t terribly hard to find. I’ve seen several listings on Etsy, but never pulled the trigger, mostly because I have a tendency to lose tiny things and don’t really know what I’d do with a bunch of stray cupcake picks. I’m not at all crafty. But, as I sat there, contemplating what might be a good way to display them (a tiny pumpkin pail with a very small opening?), I was lucky enough to run across a listing that I knew was meant for me to buy.

An artist on Etsy, called “HavAMarileeChristmas”, made my beloved cupcake picks into tiny dolls! 

I may not be able to remember the exact characters I saw in my head when I was five years old, but I truly feel like these little dolls depict them so well. At last, I see those tiny little heads evolved into their full potential, full-bodied and glorious, the way they always were to me, so many years ago.

I am especially proud of my little witch friend, once lonely and haphazardly displayed next to the clock in my childhood bedroom. So many times I picked her up and imagined her as a whole doll, and now, finally, here she is, with an outfit, a broom of her own, and even some sparkly hair! These four are truly my childhood dream come to life. I suppose it makes sense that it was a dream that ultimately led me to them.

Stay spooky, my friends.