A Touch of Halloween, and Memories

The Boston Globe

I meant it this time. I told my husband, my kids, my grandkids, I told everyone I’m done with decorating for every occasion. When I’m dead and God says to me, “What did you do with your time on Earth?,” I do not want to have to answer that I spent my limited days on this planet packing and unpacking Easter bunnies and witches.

I was adamant. And determined. I am going to keep my summer stuff up all year long. This would be no problem because I LOVE summer. I love looking at jars full of sea glass and paintings of flowers. I love my photos of Maine. I love my photos of my kids with their kids at Nantasket. I love the silly white Ferris wheel cupcake holder I keep on the counter, always filled with candy, my flower-trimmed dishes, seashells and sand dollars scattered everywhere, and my hand-painted, perfect-for-pistachio-nuts tulip-shaped bowl. “I am putting none of these things away,” I announced. 

And I didn’t. September dawned and I ignored the calendar. The kids went back to school and I kept singing “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” Summer officially turned to fall and I was still in my yard embracing my New Guinea impatiens, never mind all the flashy mums everywhere.

I even told my husband, “I don’t need my Halloween decorations, anymore.” And this man, who has been trying to get me to part with things for years, uttered a “Thank God.” But then I was at a market looking for spices, and a guy had a booth of Halloween masks — scary ones, pretty ones, every one so awesome. And I felt exactly like the teenager I used to be who’d run into a boy I’d loved forever but thought I was over until, wham, there he was and there I was head over heels in love again.

I won’t go crazy, I told my husband. I’ll just decorate a little. I’ll dig out my big kitchen witch and my small talking witch and Scary Man. That’s it. I won’t pack away the summer things. I’ll just add a touch of Halloween.

But in the basement I found my orange plates, cups, and bowls, and in a smaller box, my skeleton water glasses. And before I could stop myself, I was lugging them upstairs and putting them in the dishwasher and packing away the flower-trimmed dishes and hand-painted, tulip-shaped bowl. 

The rest just happened.

I found a ceramic pumpkin my mother made for me a few weeks before she died; the box of witches my friend Anne gave to me before she moved; a needlepoint, glow-in-the-dark horror house my friend Caryn cross-stitched in 1990 and a cool mummy plate my daughter Lauren gave me just last year.I spent an entire day unpacking witches and pumpkins and ghouls. And packing away summer.

And I loved every minute.

If God asks, “What did you do with your time on Earth?,” I’ll have to plead guilty to wasting it. Holidays X years X hours = a lot of days packing and unpacking. But, here’s my defense: I love witches and orange dishes and big red hearts and Santa Claus and Easter bunnies and flowers in the spring and sea glass in summer, not just because bunnies are cute and witches are funny and orange dishes are striking and all these things are diversions and we all need diversions 

But because when I unwrap the ceramic pumpkin my mother made, I remember my mother, not just as she was at the end of her life but how she was at the beginning of mine. I remember how she loved me. When I hang Caryn’s needlepoint in the family room I remember all the time we spent together, and I stop what I’m doing and text her. When I unwrap my impossible-not-to-smile-when-you-look-at-it mummy plate, I think of my daughter, Lauren.

Every silly, frivolous thing brings joy and memories. It’s that simple. A waste of time? Or a good use of time?

Only time will tell.