Halloween in Montreal West

What do I love most about Halloween? The frivolity of the secular no-strings-attached holiday? The candy? The sentiments of charity and plenty?

What I love the most about Halloween is how it helps me to see my neighbourhood in a different light. An orange rainy-autumn-evening light. The houses are all lit up, people are smiling...it's like Christmas, only instead of being at home with their family everyone has taken to the streets. And in Montreal West, there are a LOT of people on the streets, because over half the people living here have small children.

Today, I can say without fear of inaccuracy, was the best Halloween I have ever spent. Better than that Halloween when Jenna and I were small and we went through two haunted houses in one night. Better than last year, which I spent dancing in the rain.

Jocelyne and Alicia came home with me. We didn't know where everyone else was, and we wanted to do something, so we walked around in the beautiful, beautiful evening rain and went to the park, where I spent a long time on the swings. (Typical). Now, just hanging with them would have so made my evening, listening to them sing and squeal (Jocelyne does a mean Guinea Pig imitation), especially since Alicia played guitar for me. There is more.

After they left, I decided to go bother Jenna. We spent an entertaining half-hour-plus walking between our houses (we ran into Weiner actually), which would also have made the evening on its own. Then I went and told Tal's parents to wish her happy birthday for me.

Tal lives across the street from me. She's a day younger than Jenna, but skipped Kindergarten. We were always together when we were younger, even though we were as different as could be imagined, but since I started at Royal West we have been seeing less and less of one another. I haven't spoken to her in about half a year.

On Halloween, you love the world and the people around you. You love the world, and you feel that the world loves you. For a brief period of time, before we must assume once more our starched uniforms. Tomorrow we have to tuck in our shirts again.

PS. I carved a soccer ball pumpkin this year!

I have a great store of advice on topics about which I know nothing.