Despite our continual societal march towards industrialization, automation, capitalism and cookie-cutter consumption, there is something in the human spirit that is fascinated by the unknown. We love a good scary movie and a bonfire and a mask purchased at the pop-up Spirit Halloween store. We love our pumpkin spice lattes and Jack o’lanterns and dancing paper skeletons. There’s something in us that loves the prospect that while we wander the dark and misty streets with our kids and their bags and buckets of candy, everyone masked and gleeful, we may be rubbing shoulders with otherworldly things called over for just one night. And that after we retire to our beds, turn off lights and close our curtains, our woods and lanes and fields and churchyards are theirs for those dark hours before dawn; the hag, the horned man, the cold one, the thing that is pulled by the moon.

There’s something very Practical Magic about this house but it also feels nostalgic for me, too. A lot of houses in the small town where I grew up looked and felt like this; old farmhouses, including my childhood home and the namesake of this blog.

Nine years ago, my kiddo was still in elementary school and I decorated my car as ‘Under the Sea’ for her Trunk or Treat. I posted it on Pinterest so I’d remember it. The cool thing about that year’s Trunk or Treat is that her dad and her stepmom also participated with an undersea theme – monster kraken and octopi – and they won first prize while I won second. It was completely unplanned and the kiddo was stoked that her extended family swept the awards. (Now she is driving that car, btw…sigh).

Around that same timeframe I ran a couple of autumn half-marathons in the Sleeping Bear National Park in northern Michigan, and parts of the route looked identical to this picture.

Here is a particularly Northern Michigan ghost story for you, titled ‘Happy Halloween…and the Indian Drum’. I found it on Pinterest and the Michigan in Pictures blog. (And what a beautiful photograph, as well.)

We’re at the stage in our household where the kiddo has Halloween parties with her friends and we’ll be staying home and dressing up to hand out candy. Brandon will be Elvis and my costume is a secret but I’ll post pictures once the cat is out of the bag (probably first on my Instagram). I did manage to wrangle a family pumpkin-carving and Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown-watching session earlier this week and the weather is cooperating with cooler temps, drifting leaves, and damp streets, so we’re all in the mood. I hope wherever you are, you are enjoying the end of October and getting ready for a month of November hygge (November being really one of my favorite months for all of the cozy reasons and Thanksgiving my favorite holiday for it’s comparatively low-key, cozy vibe). Be well and remember that hell is empty; all the devils are here.