We are over the pumpkin-sized hump of Halloween and into the season of thanks we go. We are between two worlds. Perhaps more than we realize.
In our era in America, Halloween is an incredible celebration of fantasy that’s escalated in every imagined direction, from twelve-foot plastic skeletons and inflatables of every variety in people’s yards to a costume store that’s a retail zombie called Spirit Halloween. Think a retail space is gone for good? Nope, that kitschy ghost will haunt it as if it is lurking nearby to rear its zombie offerings the whole time.
In short, Halloween is a big deal. We get dressed in who we’d like to project ourselves to be. The choosing is an event complete with planning and dramatic unveiling. We can be scary, funny, timely, meme-related or nostalgic. The costume is an attractive moment of escape in an adult life that rarely offers more than two weeks a year.
We only go to the gatherings of our choosing. I don’t know of anyone who goes to obligatory Halloween dinners, except maybe for vampires.
Then comes Thanksgiving. In the stark light of a dining room filled with memories of who we were, we’ll be our unveiled selves in front of people who see us in the version they prefer. Or perhaps they’ll guilt us in spoken or unspoken ways for not yet being the version they prefer. Our presence at these and most gatherings is expected, even if they’re enjoyable.
If you think about it, having Halloween give way to Thanksgiving is a wildly bi-polar juxtaposition. And it’s not hard to see why Halloween is second only to Christmas while Thanksgiving has become merely the day to begin Christmas shopping.
But let me welcome your feral soul that assumes it’s on its own; everything is up to it, even its survival, to give thanks for where you are now.
Maybe after all the aspiration, projection, hiding, and effort to become something else, your soul can come home and be thankful for who you are. Sure, it’s imperfect and often humbling, but that’s okay. Feel all the feelings; you’ll be fine.
What Sally Brown can teach us
Sally Brown is the hero of The Great Pumpkin. Next time you watch it, bear witness to her realness. She gets invited to Trick or Treat. She shares her anxiety about it. “Are you sure it’s legal”. In her love, she ardently defends the passionate but delusional Linus, even to her friends. When the Great Pumpkin doesn’t show, she demands accountability. She tells Linus, “You owe me restitution!.” And finally, she mourns missing Trick or Treats when all she sees is a beagle. She felt the whole alphabet of emotion, commitment, and disappointment, and that’s all fine.
Feel all your feelings
Feel all your feelings, give thanks, and in the stark light of where you are, the misunderstandings and disappointment with people you love, know you’ve made progress, but it’s also perfectly fine not to make progress every single moment. Come to the obligatory tables of brightly lit reckoning and feel all your feelings with thankfulness. And be thankful that those feelings, like every celebration, are passing.
Be well, Feral Souls.