Muir is sitting next to the front steps. Guided by intuition, he knows I have the ATV key in my front pocket and chores to do I walk past him and he trots along behind me to the lower hay storage. He lies down and looks up as I swing myself onto the seat, start the engine and back out. Today I am headed into the pasture to take down fencing for winter. Paul is ahead of me and I can see him in the distance lifting posts, dropping them on the ground and walking forward. Bronte and I have just brought the sheep up to their winter paddock, this being the last time they will be on pasture until next May when the grass begins to blow in the breeze. It might be just me, but I notice they were walking a little slower up the hill, perhaps with intuition of their own.
I head out through the south gate and Muir begins to spin and bark. I use my working voice to tell him to stop and he begins scouring the dry leaves for something, anything to put into his mouth. It is as if he knows to stop barking but just can’t without something in his mouth preventing it. This time he gets hold of a four foot long stick and runs wildly ahead of me trying to balance the canoe paddle in his mouth.
Paul and I drop fence in different directions to meet in the middle. Each fence has to be gathered by their sharp posts, collected, rolled up and tied. I drive around, throw the rolls onto the back of the ATV and look like Santa Claus delivering netted sleeping bags. Kneeling down to haul fencing, I look up and take in the exposed hillside: no longer on fire with color but striped with inky black sticks. Leftover leaves crunch under my boots and give off a distinct smell of Halloween.
Later that evening we follow the Halloween tradition begun long ago when the kids were younger; we grab a quick dinner of pizza or burgers, slurp milkshakes and rest our backs. Staying just long enough to fill our stomachs, noticing it getting dark outside. It is time.
We leave the truck at the back of a building on the bottom of College street, a street closed every Halloween to make it safer for kids trick or treating. The festivity is thick and we can feel it the moment our feet are on the ground. Parents’ phones in one hand for photos, clasping their children’s costumed arms with the other. We slowly take in each house: every one decorated. Orange and purple lights wrap tree trunks, blow-up Frankensteins and ghosts tip ominously back and forth as kids run underneath them, skeletons climb on rooftops with bony arms. One house has cleverly been decorated like Christmas, Santa and Mrs. Claus giving out candy on the porch. Paul and I make note how easy it will be for them to pull off the orange lights leaving green for the next go round. There are fire pits lit, groups of friends in costume laughing next to them.
Dogs in costumes drag their owners along. A group of high school kids, too old for door-to-door but too young not to want to join the fun, meander with ukuleles and mandolins making spooky music for passersby. They recognize us and we smile while they perform.
For a moment I am one of the parents; I can feel the warmth of my son’s hand in mine, watching Ethan run down the road ahead of me, a pony tailed Brittney Spears that year. I remember them carrying plastic orange pumpkins with blackened eyes and mouths, that each kid would not let go of for fear of losing one piece of candy. Everybody sitting on the wood floor at home, still half in costume, counting the candy that counted. Tired children tucked into bed, still a smudge of makeup on faces. Me sitting, feet up on the couch, eating a peanut butter cup, or two, from a plastic pumpkin.
At the top of the street we stop and take in its full length. Under street lights everyone is in silhouette. I can make out a few pointed hats bobbing along. How many times did I choose to be a witch as a child. It was my go-to costume because the witch always got to have the long, black wig. My mother made me keep my hair cut short in a pixie so it was the height of luxury to feel that scratchy black hair flying out behind me as I ran. And the red lipstick. Oh, the red lipstick. My heart feels warm as various sizes of witches pass us, many of whom are adults, enjoying that red lipstick.
I breath in and I am the child, kicking leaves to hear their sound. Looking up at the Halloween moon hoping to see the back of a broomstick pass it by. Feeling my own plastic orange pumpkin bang against my leg as my I try to keep up with friends, the first time I’m allowed to go out without my parents. My dad on the corner, behind a tree. Knowing but not knowing, a time when things are just uncertain enough to be the good kind of scary.
We walk into the darkened part of the street, feeling the end of the party: climb back into the truck and pull out slowly. I look back one last time, taking it in. It takes me a moment to come back to myself, feeling the pull of sadness at it being over but reminding myself that it does return.