Seeking a disguise

My kids are continually coming up with Hallowe'en costume ideas. And I do mean continually. I never thought I'd be participating (however unwillingly) in serious Hallowe'en costume brainstorms more than once in the month of April, for example. The list of possibilities is long and growing everyday. I cannot sew and I can barely tape straight so we are limited in what we can hobble together from the dress up box, second hand store and the grocery store. The possible contenders include: a lamp (a persistent contender), a drain pipe (what is that white tube hanging off the side of the house?), followed by a suggestion that I also be a drain pipe and then we could drain into each other (fun!), a witch's cat (with the proviso that I also be the witch), a scary faced ghost, a vampire, a happy ghost, a spooky ghost, spiderman(again), tiger (again),a spider.

Even as a young adult who was free to attend boozy dress up parties I had a hard time getting into it. I loved dressing up to be in plays but I 've always had a harder time mentally pulling off dressing up for Hallowe'en. For me, there is a disconnect at Hallowe'en. There is less requirement to actually be a character and more emphasis on the costume itself. Each and every year I make a limited, rather pathetic effort at dressing up. When my kids were babies, it was enough to show up toting him or her looking adorable as a pumpkin. At that time, in my winter jacket, my costume was "mom of an adorable pumpkin". Increasingly, I notice my son's costume ideas involve more than one person, namely me.

Why am I so resistant? I have a feeling that most costumes and situations I find myself in require half-assed disguises. I cannot come to work as a full fledged, anonymous vampire. I feel like if people can recognize me, it is hardly worth the effort. When I was in theatre, I relished being unrecognizable. I guess the answer is that I need a character to hide behind to make it fun for me. I need a disguise and a masked ball to wear it to to make the hiding behind a mask to feel worth it. In the meantime, I am going to fully enjoy the exploration of all the possibilities through the eyes of my kids.

Comments

Keep telling yourself that.

We talk to ourselves everyday, all day (and night) for the whole of our lives. We started talking to ourselves before we knew we were a self, we forget what we said because we forget everything from before...when we were too young and busy developing our brain to remember those early years. There is still lingering residue of long forgotten conversations I have had with myself as a toddler sitting around in the crevices...sloughing off occasionally into words I tell myself still. We talk non-stop, and not just with dialogue. Our goosebumps communicate to us, our tingly feelings, our neurons, our peripheal vision. They are all submitting data into our self and expecting us to react, respond or all to often, expecting what they are sending us will be ignored. After all that talking, you'd think we'd know what we think about most things, but occasionally we are stumped. Unless we stop what we are doing and really concentrate sometimes that voice(s) ...

the words fell out

Despite being an introvert, I do often process big life events (and many many small ones) out loud by verbally hashing out my thoughts with whoever will put up with me. But this morning when I woke up to the big red blotch on the U.S. map...all my /the words fell out. They fell out unsaid, unformed. Got to work and probably , in another time, would have annoyed my co-workers, dominating the conversation with my verbal extrusions, but not today. I just mutely stared across at them and nodded. My dad came for lunch. Normally, we relish a good political diatribe, especially when we feel sure of our perspective, but this time, all I could do was munch on fries and marvel at all the unarticulated thoughts that I was not even bothering to retrieve. The silence inside me was noticeable. Social media was awash with reactions and I just looked away. I couldn't bear to read one word about it. I was not receptive to any reactions, accusations, reflections, words...

I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

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