Dearest Rachel –
For all that I wonder how exactly time works where you are, you probably don’t keep track of days any more than you do of lesser units, such as hours and minutes. It may well be that your only indication of the passage of each day – if you even pay attention to it – is in watching the earth slowly spin from one side to the other, from darkness to light. I’d flatter myself to think that each of these letters would be an indication for you, in particular, but it’s not as if I get one out to you at the same time every day, so it’s not as if they mark an even twenty-four hours. Indeed, while it doesn’t happen nearly as often as it used to, I can still occasionally send multiple updates in a given day, so that would throw you off, too.
But let me assume you are at least slightly aware of the going-on of this world, however insignificant they might be from your current perspective. You might know what day it is, and what it means… or more to the point, what it doesn’t mean for us, personally.
It’s Halloween, and as usual, we don’t expect any visitors.
That’s just what comes of our location, after all; a street that’s heavily trafficked by cars isn’t particularly amenable to foot traffic – and even less so for children on foot. I would assume that right behind us, in the interior of the subdivision on whose boundaries we live, this isn’t an issue, but for us, we don’t get a lot of doorbell rings, no calls of “trick-or-treat,” leading to us not needing to prepare. Anywhere else, and a generation ago, that would be asking for toilet paper in our lawn or eggs on our front façade – and in fairness, to prevent that very thing, we do have a couple of bags of candy for the possibility that someone might stop by – but the changes are sufficiently remote that even if someone were to drop by, they could likely take the entire contents and we’d be fine for the evening. Which, given my susceptibility to the temptations of chocolate, and my current dance on either side of the two-forty line, would probably be a good thing.
But there’s an additional bit of strangeness to the day; for the first time since before your departure – and, as I’m told, for the last time in a decade – it’s also a Saturday. Let me repeat that: Halloween falls on Saturday. This means that, theoretically, the kids have all day to trick-or-treat, rather than just the hours from when they get out of school until just after dusk (or whenever their parents start to worry – and I assume that would happen regardless of whether they were the type to let them head out on their own or would shepherd them personally through the neighborhood).
But I really don’t think that’s going to make a lick of difference. In fact, it may actually reduce the probability of seeing anybody, as weird as that seems. On my drive back home from the ‘office’ yesterday, I saw a few kids dressed up and carrying bags with them (some with parents, and others in groups); maybe they were coming home from some Halloween celebration at school, but I found myself wondering if the holiday had been moved up, for some reason. If so, I can imagine some of our neighbors being caught off guard by this – I know we would be.
The real difference between a holiday falling on Saturday as opposed to any other time during the week, though, has to do with other visitors that might be by. Come Thursday or Friday of any given week, and there will be buzz on the group chat: “Are we doing anything this weekend?” I will mention whether or not I’m working the booth – as it happens, I’m not this weekend, which is unusual, since it seems like most of the time, I’m either back there, or not there at all, since we’re traveling – but getting together is more a matter of whether the girls can coordinate with each other.
And lately, that’s almost been comical in its impossibility. One is free, and the others aren’t. Two are available, but not on the same day (one on Saturday, the other on Sunday), and the third isn’t even in town (which, granted, I understand, but oh my). Meanwhile, the boys stay in the family room watching a series that apparently runs in the hundreds of episodes, while I alternate between YouTube and bingeing on one anime series or another – I was going to tell you about this latest one, but the season doesn’t wait, so I figured I’d mention it first, while it was still going on.
I don’t know if I’m expressing disappointment or resignation, honey, but I’m sure this sound more like a complaint that I mean it to. It would be nice to have an unusual day, especially when the presence of a holiday (however informal – this isn’t Thanksgiving or Christmas, after all) would seem to demand it. But it feels like the day is going to be pretty much like any old Saturday; less so, in fact, without having to report to my usual station. The closest we’ll give to a visitor is if Logan orders Doordash while the boys are watching stuff today.
To be sure, I’m not all that wrapped up in the festivities, per se. Choosing and putting together a costume is a nuisance – and in your case, I preferred when we would get home and you could peel yourself out of yours – and the decorations, especially if geared toward scaring people, always struck me as elaborate to the point of cumbersome. I can appreciate the work other put into it, but it’s just not my thing to do. At the same time, it would be nice to have guests, of one level of permanence or another.
