It’s not often enough that we take time to really focus on those that are most important to us.
We give people a day here and there, a birthday, or an anniversary but as I’ve grown older these arbitrary days seem to serve less and less purpose. It seems so much more meaningful to think of those we love as often as we can, and show that love in whichever ways know how. Not to say that I don’t like birthdays, because I do. But I find myself more interested in expressing love spontaneously and more impressed with others that do as well.
Today I spent the afternoon reading a book, riding my bike and sampling teas from various local coffee shops. I took the afternoon for me, which is something I very rarely do and I kind of relished in it. This morning I rode out to the beach and back and I was going to meet some friends at an art festival in DUMBO, but the beautiful crisp autumn day just called to me, and all I could do was nourish me for a bit. This is all completely beside my point, but it set up my mood quite nicely I think.
So, following my afternoon of Jill-time I hopped back on my bike and zipped up my little puma jacket against the increasingly chilly wind and started pedaling home. The trees were just beginning to turn and the first fallen leaves whirled around me as I biked down the brownstone lined blocks. I passed a hardware store adorned in orange and brown with pumpkins accenting their sale on paint. Maybe it was the kitsch nature of this, or perhaps the tone and chill in the air, but I was suddenly transported to the Halloween’s of my youth.
Not too terribly uncommon a memory for this time of year I’d imagine. But think mine is a little different than most.
My memories of the holiday begin with hugely anticipated trips to the local fabric store.
Seriously.
Halloween, in my mind is synonymous with the textures of a thousand bolts of fabric. I think of buttons and threads and thimbles, swatches of corduroy and tomato shaped pin cushions. I think of the smell of silks and the cuddly softness of flannels. I think of all the pieces and parts of a fabric store.
Most important of all though, I think of the huge tables in the far back of the store. The tables where my sister, my mom and I would sit down and open weighty, bound books of hand drawn models. Where we would flip the pages of those books open to the tab, in that familiar shade of orange titled simply “Halloween”. Within these pages, Rockwellian models stood, with perfect smiles wearing all the costumes one could think of to create. Beautiful happy well adjusted pictures of princesses and witches, indians and cowgirls, dancers, gypsies, mermaids, and queens. Nothing was outside the scope of possibility in these pages. And I could choose practically any one of them. Around the fabled tables stood drawers, taller than me and filled to capacity with large colorful envelopes mirroring the images in the books. Inside them were the most magical element of all, at least within the parameters of a little Jill’s mind. Inside were the patterns. The raw elements of this creation method that somehow resulted in something so extraordinary to me. The process fascinated me.
My sister and I would choose our costumes and my mom would guide us through the store picking the most ideal fabric for a belly dancer, or a clown. I would touch the textiles and imagine how they would feel when I glided up to doors and down chilly streets on my once a year candy pilgrimage.
The next month or so would be spent eagerly anticipating fittings while my mom would squeeze in an hour or two here and there to lay out the patterns, cut the fabric, and meticulously sew it together our costumes using her Singer machine (“the best there is” she would assure us). Sometimes though, for the most delicate areas she would take the piece downstairs and sit as my dad watched football and sew by hand. There was so much love in those costumes it warms me to think of it.
By the end of it all we would have what were arguably the nicest costumes of anyone I knew. Next to the plastic She-ra masks and Darth Vader’s we were like royalty. I was proud to wear something my mother had created, and the act and love of that creation was an intrinsic part of my childhood autumn memories.
Time passed and I lost interest in my moms involvement. I wanted to be a rapper, or a ghostbuster and I needed no help from her for that. But late this afternoon, as I rode my bike through the blustery streets of Brooklyn, all the memories of those early halloweens flooded back. And as tears welled up a little in my eyes I realized that the gift I received from my moms dedication each fall was so much greater than that one night each year.
I get to carry that gift with me, my own halloween bag full of memories, for the rest of my life. And every fall, right around this time, I think of it, and of her.
I am so lucky.
The pleasure and the delight was mine: seeing you smile when you put on your costume, and seeing you become the princess, or Indian, or clown was as much fun for me as it was for you. I still have the costumes.
Fall is my time to reflect and remember too. I think the memories become the inner warmth that motivate us to find the joy and magic that make ordinary into extraordinary.