October 31st:
Rain today, only the second rainfall we've gotten this month. Grey clouds roll across the sky, and drops splash against my window, darken the asphalt. When the clouds lift, the mountains are pale with a new sprinkling of snow. In the afternoon, sunlight flashes golden beneath the clouds, brightening the swirls of leaves on yards and streets. I run through the dappled sunlight up Mount Sentinel, whose tawny grasses gleam copper. Beneath me, the city stretches out, streets dotted with bare-branched trees, though some yellow leaves still brighten the landscape. My shadow falls black against the gilded hillside, chasing me as I run back down the mountain.
In the neighborhoods, families are already beginning to make the rounds. Small children dressed as pumpkins and princesses, superheroes and celebrities, carry bags, buckets, or pillowcases, their parents standing back on the sidewalk as the children run forward to ring one doorbell after another. At one house, a father kneels down on his front steps, matches in hand, lighting candles for the jack-o-lanterns. I pass houses with spiderwebs tangled in tree branches, skeletons hanging on the door, or gravestones in the front yard, hear delighted shrieks and laughter, watch the streets come alive. I wonder at this strange holiday, when so many of us wander through our neighborhoods, reveling in our and each other's creativity, putting on another identity for an evening, knocking on the doors of people we don't know, receiving gifts. I wish we did this more often.
November 1st:
It's First Friday in Missoula, which means that hundreds (thousands?) of people are out and about downtown, exploring galleries, admiring art work, drinking free wine. We decide to dress up (it's still practically Halloween, after all), and wander on down. It's still early in the evening, and we are nearly the only ones dressed up, but people are appreciative, especially of my father-in-law Bill, who is wearing a spectacular Gandalf costume. A little girl dressed as a ladybug points at us and laughs. A group of college students hoot and holler from across the street, and one young man runs across to us, shouting, "Thank you for saving Middle Earth!" and urges malted milk balls on us in gratitude. A bus full of costumed people drives by, and they reach out their hands to give us high fives. One couple is convinced that Bill is Jesus, despite his long, white-haired wig and beard and tall, pointed hat. At the Naturalist's Mercantile I get my face painted--flowers and green curlicues and leaves and glitter--and leave feeling like an elf or a wood nymph.
November 2nd:
We walk downtown because it's el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, and it's one of Missoula's best parades. Dusk falls as we walk up Higgins, and I can hear a band starting to play at the far end. While we wait, I watch the streetlights change from green to yellow to red, over and over again, casting their shifting light over the warmly-bundled crowds lining the streets. Then, appearing out of the night, come huge black-and-white painted banners, raised high, of skeletons and spiders and roses. Then three gradeschool girls whirling glow-in-the-dark hula hoops around their middles as they walk slowly down the street. Jugglers tossing glowing clubs. A huge metal cart with six-foot-high wheels with white roses on the spokes, pulled by a man dressed as some black bird of prey with a wicked curved beak, and sitting atop the cart, a woman in a flowing dress, holding a long stick that she uses to teasingly prod the cart-puller as the crowd laughs.
It begins to rain, a drizzle at first, then harder, and umbrellas bloom up and down the street, but the parade continues without hesitation: a Chinese dragon, with a huge, brightly-colored papier-mâché head and a dozen or more bright papier-mâché body segments, snaking its way back and forth down the street. A large group of dancing, snazzily-dressed men and women--top hats, black suits, flowing black gowns--their faces painted like skulls, white and black and red. They carry a sign: the Dead Debutantes. School groups come by, with children of all ages holding large circles of paper decorated with colorful, painted pictures. One father holds the paper circle over his child, shielding her from the rain. A couple of women pass out blood-red carnations to the crowd; a man gives out soft white bakery rolls in crinkling paper bags; later, a girl hands out small white sugar skulls. A high school band moves into view, all the students dressed in white shirts and dark pants, with painted-skull faces, the paint smearing a little in the rain. The music stops; they pause in front of us, and in the silence the several rows of students ahead of the marching band begin a synchronized dance: back and forth, side to side, jump! Swing the hips, turn around, sway, feet shuffling and tapping against the asphalt. Pause. Breathe. As we begin to clap a rousing march sounds from the band, the brasses playing out triumphantly, and the tapping feet move forward and away.
The rain glints beneath the streetlights, and I feel a few drops trickling down my collar. To the west, the sky is clearing, and the last hint of light paints the horizon a deep blue-green. As the marching band, the last act, moves down the street toward the dance party in Caras Park, the crowd begins to disperse; we say goodbye to our friends as the rain lightens, lightens, and stops, and we walk home through the cool damp air, hearing the continued celebration and revelry in the distance.
Rain today, only the second rainfall we've gotten this month. Grey clouds roll across the sky, and drops splash against my window, darken the asphalt. When the clouds lift, the mountains are pale with a new sprinkling of snow. In the afternoon, sunlight flashes golden beneath the clouds, brightening the swirls of leaves on yards and streets. I run through the dappled sunlight up Mount Sentinel, whose tawny grasses gleam copper. Beneath me, the city stretches out, streets dotted with bare-branched trees, though some yellow leaves still brighten the landscape. My shadow falls black against the gilded hillside, chasing me as I run back down the mountain.
In the neighborhoods, families are already beginning to make the rounds. Small children dressed as pumpkins and princesses, superheroes and celebrities, carry bags, buckets, or pillowcases, their parents standing back on the sidewalk as the children run forward to ring one doorbell after another. At one house, a father kneels down on his front steps, matches in hand, lighting candles for the jack-o-lanterns. I pass houses with spiderwebs tangled in tree branches, skeletons hanging on the door, or gravestones in the front yard, hear delighted shrieks and laughter, watch the streets come alive. I wonder at this strange holiday, when so many of us wander through our neighborhoods, reveling in our and each other's creativity, putting on another identity for an evening, knocking on the doors of people we don't know, receiving gifts. I wish we did this more often.
November 1st:
It's First Friday in Missoula, which means that hundreds (thousands?) of people are out and about downtown, exploring galleries, admiring art work, drinking free wine. We decide to dress up (it's still practically Halloween, after all), and wander on down. It's still early in the evening, and we are nearly the only ones dressed up, but people are appreciative, especially of my father-in-law Bill, who is wearing a spectacular Gandalf costume. A little girl dressed as a ladybug points at us and laughs. A group of college students hoot and holler from across the street, and one young man runs across to us, shouting, "Thank you for saving Middle Earth!" and urges malted milk balls on us in gratitude. A bus full of costumed people drives by, and they reach out their hands to give us high fives. One couple is convinced that Bill is Jesus, despite his long, white-haired wig and beard and tall, pointed hat. At the Naturalist's Mercantile I get my face painted--flowers and green curlicues and leaves and glitter--and leave feeling like an elf or a wood nymph.
November 2nd:
We walk downtown because it's el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, and it's one of Missoula's best parades. Dusk falls as we walk up Higgins, and I can hear a band starting to play at the far end. While we wait, I watch the streetlights change from green to yellow to red, over and over again, casting their shifting light over the warmly-bundled crowds lining the streets. Then, appearing out of the night, come huge black-and-white painted banners, raised high, of skeletons and spiders and roses. Then three gradeschool girls whirling glow-in-the-dark hula hoops around their middles as they walk slowly down the street. Jugglers tossing glowing clubs. A huge metal cart with six-foot-high wheels with white roses on the spokes, pulled by a man dressed as some black bird of prey with a wicked curved beak, and sitting atop the cart, a woman in a flowing dress, holding a long stick that she uses to teasingly prod the cart-puller as the crowd laughs.
It begins to rain, a drizzle at first, then harder, and umbrellas bloom up and down the street, but the parade continues without hesitation: a Chinese dragon, with a huge, brightly-colored papier-mâché head and a dozen or more bright papier-mâché body segments, snaking its way back and forth down the street. A large group of dancing, snazzily-dressed men and women--top hats, black suits, flowing black gowns--their faces painted like skulls, white and black and red. They carry a sign: the Dead Debutantes. School groups come by, with children of all ages holding large circles of paper decorated with colorful, painted pictures. One father holds the paper circle over his child, shielding her from the rain. A couple of women pass out blood-red carnations to the crowd; a man gives out soft white bakery rolls in crinkling paper bags; later, a girl hands out small white sugar skulls. A high school band moves into view, all the students dressed in white shirts and dark pants, with painted-skull faces, the paint smearing a little in the rain. The music stops; they pause in front of us, and in the silence the several rows of students ahead of the marching band begin a synchronized dance: back and forth, side to side, jump! Swing the hips, turn around, sway, feet shuffling and tapping against the asphalt. Pause. Breathe. As we begin to clap a rousing march sounds from the band, the brasses playing out triumphantly, and the tapping feet move forward and away.
The rain glints beneath the streetlights, and I feel a few drops trickling down my collar. To the west, the sky is clearing, and the last hint of light paints the horizon a deep blue-green. As the marching band, the last act, moves down the street toward the dance party in Caras Park, the crowd begins to disperse; we say goodbye to our friends as the rain lightens, lightens, and stops, and we walk home through the cool damp air, hearing the continued celebration and revelry in the distance.
