Boo!

Once again it’s time. It’s time to disguise our children and send them out on the street to beg for candy. It’s time for Karo-syrup with red food coloring, and haunted houses made of cardboard jammed into the garage. It’s time for grownups to buy candy for a parade of children, and vow once again not to eat ANY of it ourselves.

Tiny witches and goblins, fairies and ninjas, pirates, Darths and cowboys will line the sidewalks once again. In the spirit of the season, darkened houses will be fearsome black holes in the night and barking dogs become the spirits of werewolves haunting suburbia.

Parents will wander among the younger spooks, holding hands and smiling at the rapture of a child’s face that has just discovered she can get chocolate for the asking. With each stop the wonder grows until she beams with the knowledge that one day a year, stolid rule-making adults are such easy pushovers.

We will sit in the driveway with lawn chairs and a camping table between us holding hot tea. We will watch the parade as they wend down the street looking for more easy marks from which to extort sugar. We will ohh and ahhh over the clever costumes and be frightened of monsters in age appropriate fashion.

And as the lights fade, and the trick-or-treaters slowly disappear, the stars will come out and we will remain basking in cold air. We will watch flickering pinpoints of light in a black sky and dream dreams of small delighted moments in childhood, when a piece of chocolate was a foil wrapped kiss.

Happy Halloween to all.

Acting up (and not too well)

I seem to be somewhat buried in a rather delightful mess. I was volunteered to be part of the church Christmas play. I simply asked when the performance was and suddenly found myself with a rather large role in the production.

As with any play, the best that can be achieved is semi organized chaos. It’s been described as herding cats, though cats have slightly higher cognitive skill than actors and are easier to control.

Some of my fellow thespians are children, a couple small enough to look precocious in their coat hanger and gauze wings, and a few older boys who have found peer acceptance through the medium of flatulence.

Adults with better things to be doing on a Tuesday night mingle on the stage aimlessly, while straight backed vinyl covered chairs are hills and beds and even a manger.

We strut and stagger, mumble and talk so fast only humming birds are sure of what they have heard. The word “LINE” is called out more than the words written for the plot and we smack our heads and berate ourselves for not memorizing letter perfect.

In defiance of Shakespeare we saw the air with our hands and stutter and stagger and turn our backs to the audience. It is as unprofessional a production as I have ever been in, yet the tumult and the noise are fun and filled with life.

Once each week, I get to laugh and shake my head and roll my eyes and feel grateful I am not the director of this creative mob. What we lack in training and maybe even talent are more than made up in enthusiasm and a common bond to create something together.

So if the shepherds forget to fear a three year old angel with a pipe cleaner halo, or Joseph can’t remember where Bethlehem is, the production will still be a success. It’s the journey that matters after all is said and done, and the message that is carried in mumbled lines spoken out of sequence.