Vintage Seance: May 2011

I took a walk in my old neighborhood recently, the one I grew up in. Now that I live closer to it, it's my new favorite place to take a walk and clear my head. One of the things I liked most about being there was that I realized I had many memories from past Halloweens. I mean, if you think about it, Halloween is the one night of the year when you really get to explore the neighborhood and see the most of it while trick 'r treating. On my walk I past a little house with a huge garden in the front yard with a rot iron gate surrounding it- this was one of those houses I had gone to on one of the Halloweens I had had there.

This particular Halloween, I was pretty little, probably about eight years old and I remember walking up to this house I had never been to before. It was a cute little house like the others, but the garden looked so wild and neat, especially because whoever lived here had put some beautiful green lights out, and plenty of candle light too. As I approached the house, an older woman came to greet me with a bowl of candy. She smiled at me and told me my costume was lovely. Something about this lady was very intriguing to me. I believe she was dressed up as a witch, which I admired as well, but I think I was just really inspired to see a grown-up have such an appreciation for Halloween.

I began to wonder if she really was a witch just because she was obviously really into this. And when I thought she could have been a witch I remember thinking that that was really cool and neat and interesting and not bad like what I had always read in fairy tales. This woman was nice and she had the whole Halloween thing down. She was having a little party with her friends in this garden where they were all eating and drinking and she invited my friends and I to come grab some snacks from their big table of goodies. The whole garden was so atmospheric and beautiful and of course the food was amazing too... I think this was my first experience that made me really fall in love with Halloween, because after all we can celebrate it even as grown-ups.