Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

  It was the one gloomy day we really had all October. It had been unseasonably warm. So sunny. The atmosphere of Halloween, of   'spooky season', if you will, was nearly lost.  But that day was different. Good things loomed on the horizon for me. I was about to go off in celebration of my favorite holiday, in my favorite place. If I was lucky, which I was, I might complete the final leg of a particular piece of my healing journey on that trip. I don't know that I've ever been more excited. I called my mother that morning, as I took a walk around the block. Her birthday was the next day. We talked about everything, but mostly how happy I was.  It felt like magic. I came home and sat out in the yard, looking around as I always do, taking in one last glimpse of my home in October. It's always so strange to look at anything, any place, and think, ' Next time I'm here, it won't be October anymore.' I may as well say: Next time I'm here's I won...

I have probably spent a significant part of my adult life chasing the high of Christmas Eve in my childhood. Though Halloween was always my favorite holiday, Christmas Eve felt like this otherworldly time, when the whole world sat on edge, waiting for something magical to happen. And once the morning came, everything would be as it had been the year before. A homecoming. I haven’t felt that way about Christmas in a very long time, but tonight I feel that excitement once more. I see the pieces coming back together. The decorations I mourned last year reappearing, on neighbors’ lawns and doorsteps, in stores I visit. Pumpkins, real  pumpkins, are alive and waiting once more, relevant again, no longer the rotting forms left over from a night no one seems to remember. We are seen.  The world looks like a place I recognize again, and I don’t have to squint so hard to see it. I don’t look across the lake and imagine the green trees turning orange and red and yellow, because now they...

  There is an image that many of us keep in our minds, of a child waiting for Santa Claus on the evening of December 24th.  Many of us can recall being that child, jumping up hopefully at every slight little sound, thinking it may be reindeer on the roof.  These memories and images represent our belief in magic in its truest form.  And for many people, this goes away after so many years. I no longer wait to see a sleigh flying past me, but for me, magic...anticipation...is still very much a part of my life.  On the evening of September 30th I look outside. I catch sight of a leaf with a tint of orange or yellow or red. I feel a chill in the air. A strange aura of spookiness. I see pumpkins on porches and can almost sense the excitement of the people that placed them there.  The greatest gifts of my year don't come from a man on a sleigh with a sack full of items.  I wake up on the morning of October first and run into the waiting arms of the time of ye...

  Where does October go when its time has passed? Everyone has a home to retreat to when the party is over, don’t they? I’ve always thought of October like an old friend, one I don’t get to see frequently throughout the year, and one who, sadly, has a tendency to leave without saying goodbye. So many November mornings I woke up, trying to find the traces of my beloved, who’d just been there the night before. And, although certain things remained the same, the comfort of knowing that October was there was almost entirely gone, as if it never existed at all.  As the years have gone on, October’s exit has only become more abrupt, with the bully December trying to block out November, and memories of October, entirely.  But still, where does it go? I’ve spent much of my life trying to find October’s home. If it can’t come to me, all year round, then why shouldn’t I be able to go to it? I’ve found that October doesn’t retreat to one place. Maybe it’s cliche to say that it lives...

 Halloween is less than a week away. This is a truly exciting time, but I also can’t help but be sad when I think about the fact that, a week from today, Halloween will be over. Post-Halloween depression is something I’ve always struggled with. It hits me hard every year, once Halloween night’s festivities are done. Even as a young child I referred to November 1st as “the day of despair”. Clearance sales make it slightly more bearable in adulthood, but nothing really takes away the pain of knowing Halloween is gone for another year once November arrives. In recent years, though, I often catch myself falling into a pre -Halloween depression as well. There is a period of time, during late October, when looking forward to the actual day of Halloween, blends with knowing the season is just about done.  If you love Halloween, you probably know the time I’m talking about. You can’t take two steps toward a fleck of orange you see in the distance at any major retail store without trip...