The year without ritual

Once upon a time, in a city we used to live in, Halloween marked the beginning of the "fun" or, at least, the more socially significant part of the year that stretched on through the Holidays and Carnival and.. depending on who you ask... would end with the close of one or another spring festival. 

But this is not where we live anymore.  Instead we live in perpetual detention.  The calendar moves but the rituals we mark it with are not fully available to us. They exist, but only as bizarre echoes of themselves; some more dark than others.  We only kind of see them happen but don't fully participate. And what we do observe is robbed of its meaning. Shape without form, shade without color, etc. etc.  Sporting events in empty stadiums broadcast over the sound of a simulated crowd. 

Saturday night we did everything we usually do to prepare for Trick-Or-Treaters.  We bought our candy and carved our jack-o-lanterns (see this year's deep Greek hurricane season represented above.)  When we read on September 30 that the mayor had answered a 7 year old's email with a promise that Halloween would happen, we were determined not to let her down.  And then when we read a couple of days later that the mayor had revised and embellished the story saying in the new version that it was a 12 year old who had sent the email, we were even more inspired than before. 

We weren't sure how to improvise a socially-distanced plan, though.  We bought a box of latex gloves and some of those plastic face shields to wear over our regular masks in case that made any sort of difference. But as the evening drew nearer, we grew less confident that we were doing the right thing.  Our corner is typically very busy on Halloween night. We look forward to it every year.  We thought we were ready to participate in this comforting ritual with our neighbors again but couldn't stop worrying that too many interactions with too many random people might be a risk to everybody. 

We decided not to go out. I thought about putting the candy outside the door in a bowl but something about that seemed even more wrong, another empty ritual. Something missing between the idea and the reality, etc. etc.   Better to just admit this wasn't the year for it.