{life with a curious and crazy 12 yr old}
She likes to tell people we don’t celebrate Halloween, and technically we don’t, but it has become the place where we let her follow some of the more commercial aspects (can you hear me cringing?). It started just a couple of years ago when we joined some lovely friends for pumpkin carving, their kids went trick or treating and asked if Duende could come and we couldn’t say no to friends. It doesn’t conflict with my beliefs or practices of the festival just my dietary caution and distaste for commercialism.
She has a good time running around in the dim light with friends, dressed up (which is always a thing, and we never buy ‘costumes’, if costume pieces come into our lives, go for it – like these wings and the tiara) and I try not to look as she eats small amounts of toxins. Perhaps a side tradition of Samhain is not just to honor our ancestors but to toy with death on a slight scale (now you can hear me rolling my eyes, can’t you?). This year she hit Water St in Gardiner for the store trick or treating; it was quite a turn out. She was pleased.
For us, as usual, a ‘holiday’ or festival, as we prefer, is spent together – eating a nice dinner together (pumpkin meatloaf, anyone – no pumpkin added, that was for the pie this time which D made and it was amazing! – from Ashley English’s Year of Pies), playing games, discussing our lives and plans and dreams.
She’s been helping at the new store – washing windows, helping to scrape off window tint, onto mudding and sanding sheetrock, and then painting. In her off-time there she plays with her matchbox cars and marbles across the smooth clean floor – she’s going to be disappointed when we put bookshelves up! She’s loving her ceramic classes, she’s made a couple of bowls and this stunning lady with one arm (she’s got a story!) and has been arting up a storm: new close ups and characters, carboard spas for tiny dogs, paper airplanes and decorations galore. She’s onto a new tree identification project for homework, sketching leaves before they disappear, marking identifiers, reading Akiva Silver’s Trees of Power.
But today, yes today – we must all stack some wood. The weather has been uncanny – warm, foggy, strange light – I’m sure she’ll be adventuring.
Rock Bottom Homestead 