It is difficult to get my mother to celebrate, or play dress up, or to be silly as part of a holiday in this country.
There is a notion of All Saints Day, which I feel she takes more seriously. As if everything is somber, and she is closer to not laughing than laughing. She is comfortable in cemeteries, and even more so at church. As if she invests in all the superstitions of church, she can be making payments towards a painless death.
On the other hand, I like Edwin Gorey, his macabre drawings of skeletons and hauntings. I laugh at ghosts, while honoring them at the same time. I expect it will all come about in its own time. Dying at my father's age or at twice that has allowed me to not be afraid of the passing over, but to include everything I can while I am on this side.
I have no deep understanding of the subtleties of the spirits of the Islands, the Azores. The shipwrecked ghosts, the people driven mad by the isolation or their own internal madness. But I want to learn, not just about what happens after death to my ancestors, but how the long traditions of keeping the bad spirits at bay.
There is a notion of All Saints Day, which I feel she takes more seriously. As if everything is somber, and she is closer to not laughing than laughing. She is comfortable in cemeteries, and even more so at church. As if she invests in all the superstitions of church, she can be making payments towards a painless death.
On the other hand, I like Edwin Gorey, his macabre drawings of skeletons and hauntings. I laugh at ghosts, while honoring them at the same time. I expect it will all come about in its own time. Dying at my father's age or at twice that has allowed me to not be afraid of the passing over, but to include everything I can while I am on this side.
I have no deep understanding of the subtleties of the spirits of the Islands, the Azores. The shipwrecked ghosts, the people driven mad by the isolation or their own internal madness. But I want to learn, not just about what happens after death to my ancestors, but how the long traditions of keeping the bad spirits at bay.
