Halloween in the blink of an eye

This year: Batman & a ninja

It was Halloween yesterday, a holiday that is usually a high point of our year. Jake starts talking about it over the summer. By September it comes up nearly every day. Jake loves pumpkins and Jack O' Lanterns and all things Halloween in that passionate and obsessive way that autistic kids can love things.

For Ethan it's about the costume and the candy (the CANDY!!!!!) and the fun with friends. But for Jake it's so much more. It's something really recognizable that helps him figure out the passage of time. Halloween time comes around every year, and every year it is more or less the same.

He loves seeing his superhero friends come to life and walk all around town. He loves ghosts and witches and black cats. "Oooooh scary!" he'll say, not the least bit scared.

Jacob IS Batman

Jake loves the decorated buildings, the Halloween pop-ups that sprout in empty storefronts; is disappointed when they disappear in a sudden poof come November 1st.

But this year? I must admit that Halloween 2012 was a bit of a wash. Between the tragedy last week and then the storm, with the fear and preparations; and then the destruction all around us, I admit I was in a bit of a daze, hardly entering the holiday spirit at all.

Jake & me, in my annual "throw on a hat & call myself a witch" costume

For years now I have been obsessively making Ethan's costumes by hand (I would have done so for Jake too, but he dearly loves the store-bought ones) but this year I just knew I didn't have it in me.

Between the pressures of caring for my mother in Long Island, being in the thick of the intense middle school application process for Ethan, it having taken a month to get Jake's schoolbus straightened out and being in the midst of our legal process to get his school paid for, plus about a dozen other things I'm not even going to go into, I am worn quite thin right now, stretched to near breaking point.

Something had to give, and that was the handmade costume. So be it.

And then there was Sandy.

We live in uptown Manhattan in New York City, which means on high, high ground, well above the surge and North of the dark zone, the blackout line. We live in the land of heat and light and screens and open stores and restaurants. But all around us are those in cold and darkness.

 

So our building held its annual Halloween party, for who could deny our children their fun, their pizza and candy, their rides in the spookily decorated elevators run by the Hulk and Blackbeard.

 

But it felt strange to be celebrating amidst so much destruction and tragedy.

 

And now it's over. Jake was so sad to come to the lobby today and find the decorations all taken down. "Where did Halloween go?" he asked. Where, indeed?

Hope your Halloweens were full of less mitigated fun and joy. (And now I'm going to steel another mini Heath Bar from Ethan's stash and call it a night)