I know I'm a little late... but I wanted to go on record as saying Halloween this year was pretty cool. Wearing my feathered witchy hat at work and then dressing up and getting ready was actually more fun than the actual party we went to, but it was all very liberating and a way to let off steam in the tense political climate that was brewing (no witchy pun intended). I grew up in a very strict conservative household that held the view that anything having to do with halloween was evil, wicked, satanic, and not even to be acknowledged. But early on, when it was still okay to look like a ghost, I have such great memories of coming home with a bag full of candy and sitting in the dark with my grandma and watching out the window as kids dressed as all sorts of things came to the door, then watching my dad scare the pants off the bigger kids... it was so great!! Then we became "enlightened" (which might be code for uptight) and all of halloween was evil, but better yet, we didn't stop celebrating we just called it a "harvest party" instead of halloween, and dressed up like the apostles or angels... hahaha isn't that what religion has always done?
Which is why I was sooooo elated and liberated to have stumbled upon the experience of dia de los muertos (day of the dead). The real dia de los muertos celebrates and honors ancestors that have passed on in the circle of life to death, and the grinning skeletons are a way to demystify death and say "see it's not so scarey and bad, it happens to everyone and it's okay". It made my dressing up like scarey stuff okay again, and a way to let loose and have some good old fashioned fun.
Truth be told I did feel a little like I was treading on someones grave, or at any moment going to get a healthy tongue lashing about the dangers of the satanic world... sorry dad, I hope you're not reading my blog today.
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