Halloween in a Time of Plague

I went to bed last night without setting the clocks back--so this morning I sprang out of bed thinking that it was 5 a.m., as the bedside clock said.  My Fitbit watch reminded me.

By then I was awake, so I stayed up, scrolling through my Facebook feed that was filled with delightful children in costumes and pictures of the full moon.  Here's the type of picture I was posting yesterday:

My spouse and I made cookies for a Halloween get-together.  He's the one who dug through the bag of cookie cutters to find all the possibilities (you might recognize moons, ghosts, bats and cats, in addition to the pumpkins I was planning to create).  He's the one who tinted the icing into different colors.  He's the one who did the icing and the arranging on the platter.

In between bouts of baking, I had some phone conversations.  I talked with my mom and dad; we've been exchanging lots of e-mails about what makes the most sense for Thanksgiving.  Longtime readers of this blog may remember that my far-flung family gathers at a big, ramshackle house at Lutheridge every year.  We have begun to wrestle with the idea that gathering together may not be wise this year.  My mom's doctor flat out told her not to go, and thus, they've made their decision, which I fully support.  Tonight all the far-flung family members will gather for a Zoom call to discuss what the rest of us should do.

I also got a phone call from a friend from church.  She's moving to Missouri.  Part of me isn't surprised, at least not that she's moving.  Almost everyone I know contemplates the idea of moving, especially since most of the people I know are making middle or lower class wages, and we're living in a place with a much higher than average cost of living.  Still, it does feel like the end of an era; she was one of the key members of the various creative enterprises that we tried at our church.

All Saints feels different to me this year and not just because we're in the middle of a plague.  I think of all the people who have moved away, many of them far away.  I want to believe that we'll see each other again, but it doesn't seem likely.

Back to the Halloween update.

Our Halloween down here was very rainy, so we didn't see much in the way of trick-or-treaters--but as I've said before, we usually don't have many of them.  We went to our friend's house to enjoy a glass of wine together.  We had planned to be outside on the front driveway, in case any trick-or-treaters came by, but the driving rains sent us to the back yard, where there's more shelter.  It was delightful to have grown up treats and to catch up with each other.

If my family does decide not to gather this year, we will likely spend Thanksgiving with these friends.  I feel lucky that not all my friends have moved away.  I feel fearful that the last remaining ones down here will succumb to the lure of selling the house and pulling up stakes--but for now, let feel that gratitude for good friends.