One-sided conversation
October 30th
It is this time of the year again, the time to speak with those no longer among us. I can speak with them any time of the year, but this time they will listen. Maybe even respond. Or so the legends and myths of pagan rituals and witchcraft say. And who am I to deny the truth of the long-repressed lore of olden days? I want this to be true and let my mind accept it as a part of the yearly tradition nicely and poetically described as a Forefathers’ Eve.
All this despite the fact that I am a rational man. I left organized religion many years ago, I am a technocrat by political preference and listen and defer to scientific opinions and recommendations. I look for explanations for my actions and beliefs with a cold detachment. I let myself be emotional and fed and torn by feelings, but in the end — even when I don't follow the advice gathered from it — I know what was the logical and sane explanation of my actions and moods and reactions.
But during those days — the last days of October and the first day(s) of November colloquially called Halloween or All Saints' Day or by any other locally relevant phrase — I let my mystical religiousness come to the forefront of my thinking. My emotional mood changes, I no longer feel any need for laughter or silliness or temporal bullshit. I feel quiet and inwardly concentrated even more than usual. I feel the weight of the common fate of previous generations laying heavy and cumbersome on my shoulders. But in this case during those days, I welcome that heaviness as my duty.
Those are the days when it gets dark by mid-afternoon already, suddenly like someone just turned on the switch calling us and nature to a deep slumber. Those are good days to think in the quietness of the warm home, when the outside world no longer slips its rushed and annoying noise through open windows. Those are the days when I take stock of myself and prepare for winter and cold and snow and nature going into hiding. And those would be good days to talk with several people I sorely miss in my life, get their assurance and love and support. So I talk to them and let myself believe that they listen.
