Why can't we grown ups throw on a costume for the day and become a made-up version of a person for just a few minutes?
The day Tom and I first moved into our house over 10 years ago, we put a HUGE pile of trash out on the curb. You know that moving in/moving out pile? That pile of boxes and papers, things that broke along the way, and things that should never have been packed to begin with?
Well, we put it out there about midnight and went to bed. At about 5:00 in the morning, much too early after the day we'd had the day before, we heard what Tom thought were the world's largest raccoons. "Raccoons!?" I thought. "Where in the hell did we move? The wilderness? I thought this was the suburbs!" Then I said, "Dude, you're from New Jersey, how do you KNOW?"
Well, it turned out it wasn't raccoons. It was a person. She was on a very serious mission to find treasures. We knew nothing about her at that time, but she did spark an interesting conversation at dawn about whether or not we should chase her off (Tom) or let her have her way with our junk (me).
After that morning, we saw her a couple of times as she wandered around the neighborhood, usually with a couple of bulging bags of STUFF. Always seriously sad.
Then came Halloween. I'd never had Trick-or-Treaters in my entire life. Well, that's not entirely true. One time when I was about 15 some friends from church drove up our long and scary hill with their kids to trick-or-treat. We, of course, had no candy... not even pennies. My Dad gave them cans of Campbell's soup. The parents in the room thought it was hilarious... the kids? Not so much.
Anyway, the first Halloween in our house brought a whole herd of cute little kids in costume. Clowns, princesses, Luke Skywalkers.
It also brought a few families from other cultures who hadn't quite read the entire memo about how we do Halloween here. There weren't the traditional Halloween words, just an outstretched bag. From the kids. And the grandmothers. We graciously obliged their request and thought that was the most unusual, melting-pottish thing we'd see that night.
But, then, at 10:00 or so (yep, Tom forgot to tell me the rule about turning out the light when you've had enough goblins), we got a knock on the door. There stood our trash-friend. She was dressed in aluminum foil and a rather clever combination of wires and light bulbs... and also a garbage bag and funny glasses. She had a sign around her neck that said, "Y2K Bug." For the first time ever, we saw her smile. Just for three seconds, but there it was.
We never saw the smile again. We learned that she was a very mentally ill woman whose hoarding imprisoned her mother in a home of telephone books and empty cereal boxes. We learned that the bathtubs in her home had been unusable for years and that her mother was too infirm to help her.
It was about two years into our lives here in this house that the mother was removed to another home and the ill daughter lost the house. Depressing. Dark. Tangled. Foul.
But... there was that moment... that one smile... because in her illness she was graced, for just a night, with the inability to see the rules we've made about who gets to dress up as someone else.
I gotta go find my cape.
The day Tom and I first moved into our house over 10 years ago, we put a HUGE pile of trash out on the curb. You know that moving in/moving out pile? That pile of boxes and papers, things that broke along the way, and things that should never have been packed to begin with?
Well, we put it out there about midnight and went to bed. At about 5:00 in the morning, much too early after the day we'd had the day before, we heard what Tom thought were the world's largest raccoons. "Raccoons!?" I thought. "Where in the hell did we move? The wilderness? I thought this was the suburbs!" Then I said, "Dude, you're from New Jersey, how do you KNOW?"
Well, it turned out it wasn't raccoons. It was a person. She was on a very serious mission to find treasures. We knew nothing about her at that time, but she did spark an interesting conversation at dawn about whether or not we should chase her off (Tom) or let her have her way with our junk (me).
After that morning, we saw her a couple of times as she wandered around the neighborhood, usually with a couple of bulging bags of STUFF. Always seriously sad.
Then came Halloween. I'd never had Trick-or-Treaters in my entire life. Well, that's not entirely true. One time when I was about 15 some friends from church drove up our long and scary hill with their kids to trick-or-treat. We, of course, had no candy... not even pennies. My Dad gave them cans of Campbell's soup. The parents in the room thought it was hilarious... the kids? Not so much.
Anyway, the first Halloween in our house brought a whole herd of cute little kids in costume. Clowns, princesses, Luke Skywalkers.
It also brought a few families from other cultures who hadn't quite read the entire memo about how we do Halloween here. There weren't the traditional Halloween words, just an outstretched bag. From the kids. And the grandmothers. We graciously obliged their request and thought that was the most unusual, melting-pottish thing we'd see that night.
But, then, at 10:00 or so (yep, Tom forgot to tell me the rule about turning out the light when you've had enough goblins), we got a knock on the door. There stood our trash-friend. She was dressed in aluminum foil and a rather clever combination of wires and light bulbs... and also a garbage bag and funny glasses. She had a sign around her neck that said, "Y2K Bug." For the first time ever, we saw her smile. Just for three seconds, but there it was.
We never saw the smile again. We learned that she was a very mentally ill woman whose hoarding imprisoned her mother in a home of telephone books and empty cereal boxes. We learned that the bathtubs in her home had been unusable for years and that her mother was too infirm to help her.
It was about two years into our lives here in this house that the mother was removed to another home and the ill daughter lost the house. Depressing. Dark. Tangled. Foul.
But... there was that moment... that one smile... because in her illness she was graced, for just a night, with the inability to see the rules we've made about who gets to dress up as someone else.
I gotta go find my cape.
This one made me cry! You never told me this story. WOW! I remember talking about the hoarder once when we were walking in your neighborhood, but I didn't know she came for Halloween. Really--I am seriously moved by the way you told the story!
ReplyDeleteAnd your dad gave the Helotes Trick or Treaters SOUP???? That sounds like something we would have done alright. But I don't remember that it actually happened. That's hilarious!