Did you go in costume to any Halloween parties last week? What were you dressed as? Does the magic of briefly "becoming" some other person, or some fanciful creature, appeal as much to you as an adult as it did when you were a child?
As a child, I loved putting on a costume at Halloween. My most vivid Halloween memory is from when I lived in Des Moines, Iowa. I was about 7-years-old. Buddy Clark's popular song Linda was playing on the radio. That year, I was dressed as a princess -- complete with a tiara, a silver wand with a star at the tip, a flowing white sparkling dress, a silver belt, and silver dancing shoes. For a few minutes, as I admired myself in the mirror, I thought maybe I was a princess, instead of Linda Jay from Kirkwood Grade School!
Before we left to go trick or treating, I grabbed a shopping bag to carry all the "loot" I hoped to score from the neighbors, and raced out of the house. My mother (the adult chaperone) and I met up with three of my friends at the street corner, and we set out on our annual adventure. Our neighborhood was one of big houses, with huge lawns in front. The sidewalks were covered with boatloads of orange, red, and gold leaves that made a marvelous crunching sound when you shuffled through them; the smell of bonfires was in the air.
Fearlessly -- this was before the days of warnings about dangerous people inserting razor blades into kids' candy apples at Halloween -- our little band of four ran up to our neighbors' front doors and rang the bell, or knocked loudly. One of us was a pirate, one was a snowman, one was a rabbit, and of course I was the princess. When the neighbor opened the door, we all shouted "Trick or Treat," and fervently hoped for a delicious candy such as Snickers, Hershey kisses, or Baby Ruths -- rather than what was "good for us" (a piece of fruit).
Although I'm no longer prancing through my neighborhood in a costume on Halloween, I do love the idea of putting Real Life (which sometimes can be All Too Real) on the back burner for a few hours so that I can morph into an enchanting someone or something else. Hey, why not have a costume ball for one in my own home whenever I feel like it? I could let my imagination run riot. Live in a fairy tale -- like the child in me who still lives right below the surface.
Linda Jay Geldens, www.LindaJayGeldens.com
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