Community

Christmas. Easter. Thanksgiving. You can find me at home, alone. The family gets together in the afternoon and has an early dinner, and I'm nowhere to be found. If the location happens to be where I am, I go elsewhere. But every year, on Halloween, I go to the store and buy a day's works worth of sour candies, chocolate bars, rockets, all individually wrapped. I carve out a pumpkin, dress in black, and sit outside on my porch, with no light except for that that comes from the candle within the pumpkin. Some kids skip my house, but the ones that do come, they receive two fistfulls of candy.

When I was kid, the only time I ever went onto a strangers front porch and rang the door bell was on a dare. And I ran away before anyone came to the door. But Halloween is all about that. Little kids, ringing at a stranger's place, approaching strangers in the dark. Strangers. You know, those people that your parents tell you you should never talk to. The ones that the news are always reporting as having stolen another child, abused them. And these strangers, neighbours, people in the community, people you've never spoken to but maybe seen, these people give you a reward for being brave enough to come to them.

Because Halloween is all about fear, but not of ghosts and goblins, rather fear of our community, the people around us, and when we confront that fear, when we approach them, we find ourselves rewarded, and our fears unjustified.