Went to the annual power-tool-pumpkin-carving party this weekend. Host Steve is a tool wizard; Host Linda’s board groaned with burrito fixin’s. This year, there was a new twist: The Jack O’ Lantern totem pole. Picture a backyard littered with innocent pumpkins, waiting for their fate in the dark grass. Towers of floodlights show the carving table: a narrow, ten-foot stretch on chest-high saw horses. Imagine the gleaming blades of sawzalls, the glitter of drill bits and dremels, the humble tooth of the paring knife. Yellow and orange extension cords coil everywhere, like the serpents of the underworld writhing to life in fall’s colors. The bright lights make the shadows under the pines pitch-black and the grapevines contort weirdly out of the corner of your eye. Everywhere, beer and children flow.
Yes, children.
The Fox had a blast, scampering among adults’ legs as they wielded loud and sharp implements. I did good, too, finely walking the line between helicopter mom and not letting him learn a lesson by losing an eye.
The power-tool pumpkin carving party: your toddler (or your inner two-year-old) outta try it.
The pumpkins migrated from the sawzall slice of the lid to the manual scooping station. No power tool for that, alas, but the Fox loved getting his hands in there. Then, the power toos in hand as pumpkin guts flew, along with the gnarly smell of raw pumpkin. One hip Jack O’ Lantern sported a pair of headphones made out of pumpkin circles and a curving branch.
Snatches of overheard pumpkin-carving chatter ranged from “You’re drawing your design with a pen first? That’s like using a net!” To my favorite of the night: As Steve wielded the dremel on Linda’s careful and intricately drawn picture of an arching black cat (okay, it’s an orange cat on the pumpkin. But the blackness of all cats is clearly implied on Halloween…) As he worked her design, someone said, “Hey, you’re doing it for her!” And Steve replied, head bent to the task “Well, it’s like that old saying. If you give someone a fish, they eat for a day. And if you teach them to fish… they leave you.” Laughter all around. Linda’s laugh sounded like she blushed at the compliment, but it was impossible to see in that strange world of floodlight and shadow. Darkness and light. Danger and art and, did I mention? Darkness. It is the beginning of the dead time of year, which is how I think of this space between Halloween, and Winter Solstice’s new start.
Fires are good now, not just to stay warm, but to burn away what is dead and dying within us. The tribe is going into the cave for winter. If we didn’t have grocery stores and if the harvest was poor, we’d be looking at our supplies and wondering if the little ones would have enough to live until spring. This is our seasonal legacy and there is power in this impulse. Pare down. Go within. Decide what is important enough to live.
Outside the cave, the totem pole of Jack O’ Lanterns stands guard. We gather ‘round and tell stories of darkness, not just to scare ourselves but to release our fear, which can only happen if first you hold it in your hand. Halloween. Say welcome to the beloved dead, welcome to night’s reign, welcome to the time of rest before we begin again.
Happy Halloween.
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