We bought my grandson’s first ‘real’ Hallowe’en costume this year — a teddy bear. At least, I thought it was a teddy bear. Except that my incredibly crafty son & DIL made it into a (wait for it…) EWOK! How cool is that??

So here’s Trin, in his Ewok costume, w/ his orange pumpkin ready to hit the houses on the block. While I will be here in Tulsa, hundreds of miles away, answering the door to Frozen princesses and Batman villains & heroes. Sigh.

I’m trying to put a good face on being a grownup, stuck handing out candy. I put on my HUGE bat earrings (a gift from a dear friend who knows how I love bats), my jack-o-lantern necklace, my skull bracelet (notice a bejeweled theme, here), and a basic black smuggler’s outfit. With a bright, pumpkin orange hoodie. That’s about as costumed as I get, these days.

The Hallowe’en tray is full of Starbust, Skittles, midnight Milky Ways, and other good junk. There’s a glass bowl brimming with candy corn, too (for the hander-outers). My beloved will keep the two sound-like-they’re-rabid dogs on leads, so I can answer the door.

It’s not as cool as the alluring call of walking up to strange houses w/ your folks (or better yet, your BFFs). But it’s still good, this night when the borders between here & there blur…

Still, I’m looking for something that will make it as special as it used to be, when I was much much smaller & younger. Some hint of the magic that made me believe the dead might walk, even speak, if I held a mirror just so, or a Ouija planchette on its board. I would love to visit w/ my father, my mother, my old ladies… There’s so much I still want to say.

In the meantime, I made tea w/ the autumn roses, and a sprig of scarlet sage. It will have to do as the elixir of the day. While I think of far-away Ewoks, and the dead who remain so very silent.