Halloween was last night in town at Aunt Ashlyn's house.  Elsje and Russel joined in for their first ever Halloween celebration.   They asked the group of us adults sitting with beers after the kids were home and sorting candy, where we got Halloween.   We all stumbled around verbally, tossing out bits of history: pagans, equinox, Catholics, Day of The Dead, Samhain, etc.

I asked them about the major and lesser holidays in South Africa.  Apparently there is Christmas and Easter and insignificant banking kinds of holidays (similar in fanfare to Columbus day, for instance).  No extra curricular feasting.  Apparently, no co-opting of super cool mystic Bush lore?  I suppose the holidays of gluttony are all uniquely American.  Natch.

Today we'll take down my beloved Halloween decorations.  And Mom is coming over to work on our present for the newly weds.  We're making her a (first ever as far as I know) tree skirt to match the family tradition of red wool felt stockings, a tradition I enjoy so much.  I love to sit with the wool on my lap and imagine what to make next, to feel through my hands a connection with the grandmothers who started it all (I wonder, does it go back further than the first stockings Ann Taylor made?)  And to realize I get to help throw the whole thing forward, hopefully, as a gift of love for future generations as well as a gift of now.

Every year I go on a small bitch-ranting tirade about the commercialism of holidays.  Val set me straight, "Too bad we can't all be as hand-made special as you."  Ouch, quite right.  Thank you Val!  Gratitude gratitude gratitude gratitude, please, let me pin my soul to eternal simple humble gratitude and keep moving.

I am unimaginably lucky: my whole story.  I can see it in my children's eyes every day.  I can see it in the fresh vision of new friends.  I can see it in the angry eyes of a friend recently diagnosed.   The truth of my good fortune lives in my husband's eyes, always.  There is infinite opportunity to see it everywhere I look.  Happy Good This Weird World Day with Love and Gratitude, y'all!