I guess I am forever doomed to hear that old Credence Clearwater Revival song, "Doo Doo Doo, Looking Out My Back Door" every time I start to write this column.  (See, now you will as well every time you read it).  Sorry about that.

I feel absolutely giddy today because it's HERE!

One of the very best things about Grizzly Flats is that even though you are in California, by reputation one of those golden states where the sun never sets and you never have to wear a jacket, you can really, really feel the seasons. 

I L*O*V*E October.  It has forever been a contest as to whether I appreciate Fall or Spring most of all.  In Spring, it can be challenging to get excited over a warm day because usually there will still be more snow later on.  "Until snow hits the dogwoods, winter isn't done!" 

When the snow finally leaves, it's as though the whole world got a face peel.  The smells are just staggering, so sweet and earthy.  The mountain misery comes alive and everything smells like Christmas trees.  Feeling the sun so warm and soft after months of living in the Winter Warlock's back yard is absolutely blissy.

Yep, Spring = good, especially if we managed to get through the Winter driving experience without sliding off the grade and making an ass of ourselves and scrap metal of our car.  Oh the many things for which we can be thankful when Spring finally, really arrives!

For the past several years, however, Fall has won out for me.  Feeling the crispness of the air, the fat, orange harvest moon hanging low in the sky, the soft blanket of pine needles and cedar tips that starts to fall over the ground, the call of the birds as they bust their feathery little butts to get to whatever Southernmore part of the world they have chosen to vacation in this year, needing my cuddly, flannel robe in the mornings because of the chill that came sneaking into the house at night, the warm slide of my mulled apple cider easing down my throat (I do make the best ever)...  Nope, Fall wins hands down.

When push comes to shove, there are a few deciding factors that make it clear that Spring just does not stand a chance.  The first is obvious and I expect I'll hear the low, harmonious tone of thousands of mothers sighing at once when I say Fall = Back to School.  I love my kids, don't get me wrong.  I am one of the lucky ones who actually enjoys spending time with my kids every single day.  At the time of this writing, my younger ones are almost 14, 9 and 7.  They're awesome kids, but when September rolls around, they all pile onto buses and are magically transported away to schools that they really do love to attend.  I am left alone to my own selfish devices.  Even though there are family and house obligations and my job taking up my time, Fall still means that my time is my own.  Since I work at home and make my own schedule, there are times in my day when I can relish the silence.

The next rocket-boosting, Spring Can't Touch This (insert an MC Hammer riff here) bonus to Fall is that I am a 45-year-old lady (what my grandmother would have called "a woman of a particular age") and there is nothing that night sweats and hot flashes like better than a drop in temperature.  All Hail Fall.  Salut!

Lastly, the true deal breaker in all of this that Spring does not stand a chance of beating:

Halloween!!

As much as I love Fall and love October as the epitome of Fall, there is nothing I like better about it than Halloween (although the hot flash relief is a close second).  I hear the theme from the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas" running through my brain as I type this, "This is Halloween, this is Halloween..."  I get all kinds of giddy and breathless just thinking about it.

Historically, it's the time of year when the harvest season is put to rest and the dark of the year is heralded.  Our ancestors (and maybe even our NOWcestors) burn off the fields in which they have labored and toiled for months.  They put away the hoe and the sickle and the shovel that have been their nearly constant companion for weeks now as we worked long, sweaty hours to bring in the harvest from the fields.  With the harvest yield safely tucked away into the silos and the canning jars and the root cellars, sustenance over the Winter was assured and they were free to rest in front of the fire, sharing stories, relaxing in quiet contemplation and learning more about ourselves and the people closest to them.  Today, the shift in energy as the world slips into the short days and long nights is nearly palpable.

I love variety and the surety of the turn of the Wheel of the Year and the movement of one season into the next and into the next is beloved to me.  Halloween is the time when the ancient people celebrated the death of the year that would be reborn in Spring when the thaw came while the people, like the seeds that would grow in the coming warmth, waited in the darkness: forming and becoming and planning what the new agricultural year would bring. 

Each season brings it's own unique change to the world and I love the one that Fall brings, with Halloween as the consummate reflection of that change.  The Earth goes dormant and so, as organisms of Nature, should we, not beginning new projects or making any drastic changes; just settling into where we are at this time in our lives.  As the Earth prepares for its Winter's Rest, we should ourselves take on as little as possible in the way of additional chores or obligations (lessening if at all possible), instead spending the next few months evaluating our previous year, finding peace with who we are, shedding away what no longer serves us (like the burning away of the fields to prepare for the new planting that will come in the Spring) and making plans for what we would like to change in our lives in the coming seasons.

In Grizzly Flats, rest in the Winter is sometimes an enforced proposition.  Sure, in this day and time, most of us do not spend out days literally working in the fields.  Our fields are more metaphoric as we go out into the world to reap our harvests.  If, however, we cannot leave our house because our vehicle is stuck in the driveway and the snow is five feet deep in the yard, rest becomes almost inevitable. 

Halloween is such a marvelous, light-hearted, joyful reflection of the culmination of the agricultural year.  Tradition says that whatever remains in the fields on November 1st, All Saints Day (also called "All Hallows"), is "poison" and cannot be gleaned.  Not only is this one heck of a motivator to get out into those fields and work hard to bring in all you can before November 1st hits, but it is also a metaphor for letting go of the past and releasing what no longer serves us.  The ability to relax from wanting and needing and demanding and longing for a few months is a fine art that many folks find difficult to cultivate.  This old superstition gives us a dividing point in the year and teaches us that a time comes when you accept, honor and appreciate what you have rather than constantly striving to obtain or be something more.  It tells us that rest and gratitude are just as important as work and ambition.

On October 31, the bounty of the final harvest is honored.  Sure, now the bounty is reflected through the pillowcases of candy that the kiddies will drag home, but what sweeter reflection can there be?  We have the shedding of what we do not need represented by people giving away the candy (Lord knows most of us don't need to be mawing away at a feedbag of candy).  Images of "death" are honored by the many ghosts and skeletons frolicking about, representing the death of the year (but they are animated, also depicting "new life" that our ancestors believed went hand in hand with death).  Similarly, the "old" year is reflected in the Crone's face that has come to be our Halloween Witch and the "new" agricultural year that will come is visible in every little Princess and Fairy costume. 

We are allowed to dress up as anyone we want to be and dream of a totally different way of being in the world through the donning of disguises, which lets us be someone else or something else for a while.  That is the very nature of the darkest part of the year:  daring to dream of and plan for what we want to be in the coming new year.

We have bonfires to mimic the burning off the the fields, as well as "burning off" conditions, habits, relationships and behaviors that no longer serve our greatest good.  We can release our hindrances into the darkness of the year to be burned away from our lives by the consuming, purging, cleansing fire we see in the plant beds that burn.   The darkness of the Winter season becomes for us something like a womb that we enter where we can grow and think and develop. 

Something to consider is the (fairly recent) phenomenon of "Seasonal Affective Disorder" or SAD, where people become depressed for no apparent reason as Winter envelops them.  Could it be that because we no longer adapt our behavior to the seasonal change inherent in Winter that our inner clock is off?  That our psyche actual suffers because we continue to forge aggressively ahead in Winter rather than taking a hint from Nature and turning inward for some quiet introspection?

When we wake up on "All Hallows," November 1st, after a night of revelry and fun and celebration and merriment, we walk into new and "Hallowed" season.  The air always seems cooler and a little more somber.  You can feel that the year has been put to rest and life is settling in for the cold Winter that is to come.  It is literally the last "hurrah" of the warmth of the year.  Now it is time for hot cocoa and cider, sweaters, socks, jeans, blankets and a warm fire in the fireplace. 

In nearly 30 years of mothering, there has never been a year that my children did not trick-or-treat in some form or another.  We love it.  They love it.  There's nothing like the expression on the face of a 3-4 year old who has the first trick-or-treating experience to their memory.  "What?  You mean I can KEEP this?  These people are just going to give me candy?  For free?"  It's as though they just discovered the greatest racket known to man.  It's a caper they are going to get to pull off every year and you can see the ch-ching in their greedy little eyes as the full impact is registered in their wee little minds.  I love how the kids live in their costumes for a couple of weeks after Halloween, sleeping in them, wearing them to the grocery store, excited to be Leonardo the Ninja Turtle for as long as they can stand it (or their parents can stand it). 

I used to ration out the Halloween candy, letting them have 5-6 pieces throughout the day like a good mommy should.  Now I tell them to go for it. Don't get the candy papers everywhere, trade as you like, here is the Pepto-Bismol if you need it, put the ones you don't like in this big bowl for the family to share and have fun.  That way, it's over and done in a matter of days... in theory.  There's always that one kid in every bunch who will still hoard their candy for as long as possible to torture the other kids after theirs own is long gone, eating Halloween candy through the new year and beyond. 

Such is life.

It was a real shame when Halloween Terror hit with the stupid urban legends of razor blades in apples and poison in candy.  Not true.   Mostly people trying to poison their own kids mixed with "The Hook" stories and a good dash of imagination.  Such a shame to taint a great tradition with lies and ominous, misguided threats.

My kids are being wishy-washy about their costumes this year.  Delena (the 14-year-old) wanted to be Jack Sparrow, then she wanted to be Jack Skellington from "Nightmare Before Christmas," then she wanted to be Elvira (fortunately, the dress she was going to wear was one of mine from years ago and the low cut is in the back and not the front) and then she wanted to be a Greaser Guy.  Now... I have no clue.  She's on her own. I was getting dizzy.

I finally got the crack fixed in my windshield after a couple of years of watching the spiderwebbing grow and since I was in Shingle Springs to do that, I decided to venture into Darkest Low Lands and find the Spirit Super Store for some advanced Halloween shopping.  Both boys were hopping up and down about wanting to be Jack Skellington (having heard Delena's plans), so I hoped they'd have a suitable mask.  Delena tried to help, telling me how I could make the perfect Jack Skellington costume for them.  It went something like this, "First, get a pinstripe suit..."  Um, sure, I can afford/find a pinstripe suit in a size 7 or so...  I decided I would dress the kid in a black turtleneck and black pants and draw on pinstripes with chalk.  Problem solved.

Fortunately, Spirit only had one Jack Skellington, a rubbery one that you pull over your noggin for the princely sum of $15.00.  The "NO REFUNDS!!" signs were everywhere.  I picked up a few other necessities, but did not find anything that particularly excited me.  We are evidently in a lame costume year for 2006. 

I say "fortunately" about the availability of only one mask because by the time I got back safely home again (where I could breathe), both kids were off of the Jack Skellington idea, deeming it "hot in there" (referring to the mask).  I am determined that SOMEONE is going to wear that $15 head or ELSE!

Nevertheless, I hauled in the much treasured "costume box" from the shed last night to see what they could find.  Nathan (7) slept in a prisoner's outfit, one of the old black and white striped ones, then asked if he could wear it to school.  He aptly pointed out, "It's got pants!  It's got a shirt!  Why nottttt?"  I guess it was pretty comfy.

Dylan (9) is still completely undecided.  He mentioned wanting to be "Young Anikin" (as in Skywalker), but I could only find teenaged Obi Wan and undeterminable aged Darth Vader.  No sale.  If this keeps up, I'm going to strap two hula hoops to him, wrap him in cellophane and force him to go as a condom.  (NO, not really, but you can feel my frustration, right?)

It's such a delicate and important process each year, deciding who and what to be for that all important night.  At Spirit, I did find orange shirts that said, "This IS my damned costume, now give me some candy!"  I was sorely tempted...

Friday night is pumpkin carving at a friend's house.  Saturday night is the wonderful Halloween party at the Fire House, hosted by Walt and Maxine Tyler.  Tuesday night is actual trick-or-treating.  (My kids favor the Blue Mountain area)  There will be much celebrating and revelry in those few days! 

Meanwhile, they are still plotting and scheming and deciding and I am not buying one more thing until they get a solid plan in place.  I'm just not.  Foot down.  *thunk*

Hmmmm.  I sense a wrecked sheet in their future...

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Eat candy!