I caught my first glimmer of love when I was three. It happened in October; brilliant azure skies punctuated by palm trees, bags filled with candy, pumpkins on doorsteps. I was barreling through the house, as fast as my short little legs would carry me, looking for something to eat, when I spied a perfect, glossy, round, smiling, bright orange plastic Jack-o’-lantern. I shoved my hand through it’s twinkling eye socket, grabbed a fist full of sweets, and found I had a Halloween ornament permanently attached to my arm.
There must have been a lot of hub-bub involved (possibly about letting go of the precious candy) because the next thing I remember was the arrival of the firemen. There were three of them, but I only had eyes for one. He was, in a word, gorgeous. Tall, black-haired, blue-eyed, he knelt down before me, apple red bolt cutters at work, and freed me. The sundered jack-o’-lantern cast aside, my lap full of Tootsie Rolls and Almond Joy, my hand tucked safely in his.
The take-away from this life-lesson probably should have been something about not being greedy, intractable, and attracted to things you can’t have. I’ll just say I married a tall dark-haired blue-eyed man, further, in my pantheon of holidays I still have a particular fondness for Halloween, and leave it at that.
