Happy Halloween!
The sky is orange this morning — a gradient stretching up from the Austin skyline of melon, pale yellow, to blue, streaked with the jetstream of an early flight. I watch it from my window, a sunrise without the sun.
It’s cold too, the Halloween temperatures of my youth where we wore long underwear under our costumes to trick-or-treat. Thirty-five degrees in Texas and I wear my slippers and sweatshirt and dread leaving soon for a run.
At work, teams have started decorating their departments — skeletons and mummified bodies hanging from the ceiling tiles. A giant spider pinned in front of a desk that makes me jump. It’s wearing a witch’s hat. There are neon spiders on the ceiling too, rotating like the lights of a disco ball. Tomorrow we’ll keep the lights off in the office for the party — Fridays are better days for that. But today will be quiet, nearly empty, no one to dress up for.
The last time I went trick-or-treating I was a college freshman, dressed in a Cookie Monster outfit between my roommates (Big Bird & Elmo). We walked around Beacon Hill with half our dorm floor, went to John Kerry’s house. We wore our heavy winter coats and counted our candy like we did as children in the common room.
I have a bad memory of Halloween also as a freshman, in high school, this time. I kneeled in front of my mirror in my bedroom and contemplated unthinkable harm with a flower printed pocket knife. I let mascara run down my cheeks — for the aesthetic though I was too young to really understand my own drama, just that it hurt.
Three years ago I took a marker to my friends’ skin after the Halloween party wheedled down to just three of us, drunk of boxed wine and depression. It took a while to unwind.
Last year I dressed up as Captain America, getting stronger.
Today I’ll put on my running clothes and curse the cold and get it done and eat some chocolate. Maybe hear good news. It’ll be a good day. No monsters, but for the ones I read about in my book.
The orange is pink now, grapefruit to daylight.
With Love,
Natalie