Having bulky come after wisp was a challenge, but I liked the inherent contradiction and the conceptual contrast. The art teacher I had in junior and then again in senior high school (Mr. Kinney moved to the high school when my class did; it was not for want of his trying to teach me that I did not become an artist) always emphasized the importance of contrast: “Lights on darks! Darks on lights! Contrast! Contrast!” — at which point, once, one of the guys jumped up and yelled, “Rah! Rah! Rah!” Good thing Mr. Kinney had a sense of humour.
It’s Inktober again. I rather hate to start with this, but I am aware of the controversy swirling around Jake Parker right now.¹ Mostly I agree with the Well-Appointed Desk’s take on the matter (see below).
I had hoped to have more time to devote to this year’s Inktober, to write Bridget’s side of the correspondence from last year’s story, but I need a less consuming project. So I’m going to take each day’s prompt and use it in a line of a poem (no, I’m not really poet, but I thought I’d give writing a poem a try), and “illuminate” the page in the margins as I go along. Here’s the first day’s line and mini-illustration:
Stay tuned to see if I can pull this off. I’ve already messed up by leaving out a word in the first word. I had to glue a strip of paper over the first line to write the proper version. Maybe I can blot tomorrow’s line or spill water on the page!
I like to say that, just as Scrooge carried Christmas in his heart all year long, so I carry Hallowe’en in mine.
So even though Hallowe’en was over weeks ago, I want to tell you a story — a true story! — about the kindness that allowed me to put out a Jack-O’Lantern to welcome trick-or-treaters this year.
I had a busy October and didn’t get out to acquire a pumpkin until just before Hallowe’en. (OK: I am typically a last-minute kind of person, as I was unhelpfully reminded by the unnamed person who was with me). But the stores usually carry some pumpkins into November for Thanksgiving, so I thought I would at least be able to pick up a couple small ones. However, when we got to the King Soopers, the outdoor bins were nowhere to be seen.
There was not one pumpkin in sight.
Not any of those tiny decorative ones.
Not even one of those white ghost-pumpkins.
Not even one with a mushy spot.
However, it was a drizzly, cold evening, so I thought perhaps the pumpkins had been moved inside to keep them from freezing. With hope in my heart, I entered the store and went to the produce section. Alas! Here, too, all presence of pumpkins had been abolished. I resigned myself to a pumpkin-less All-Hallows and set about doing the rest of the grocery shopping.
When I had finished at the deli counter, the young man behind the counter asked if there were anything else I needed. So I said, “I don’t suppose there any pumpkins hiding somewhere in the store.” He said he didn’t think so, but offered to check.
He disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with the produce manager — Joseph I think his name was. Joseph explained that there weren’t any more pumpkins out, but that he did have one in the back he had been planning to take home. We did the “Are you sure?” exchange a couple times, but Joseph explained he already had seven Jack-O’-Lanterns at home, so I accepted his offer with profuse thanks and profound gratitude.
Joseph disappeared into the back for a moment, then came out carrying one of the biggest, most perfect pumpkins I have ever seen. That pumpkin glowed.
It was a truly magnificent pumpkin, and an equally magnificent act of generosity.
Well, I was sure that something awful would happen to that glorious squash on the way home, that my husband would drop it (even though he almost never drops things, especially when he’s being careful), that I would trip over a particularly strong up-swelling of gravity (all too likely; gravity has an unfortunately tendency to accumulate under my feet), that aliens would see my perfect pumpkin and beam it up to carve themselves (we keep hoping for something to get abducted because how X-Files would that be? — but not that pumpkin). But we got that orange orb into the house in one piece, so of course I proceeded to cut it up.
I wish I had had more time to do us to do justice to that pumpkin. I wish I had been able to carve an intricate visage with painstaking details, a well-thought-out face with tremendous expression. I wish I had been able to make a Jack-O’-Lantern that would have been entered into the annals of the Great Pumpkins of All Time.
But I didn’t. Because we have small children in our neighborhood, I wanted a lantern that would be rather welcoming, but also spooky enough to add to the atmosphere of the evening. I envisioned a sort of banshee, one with a wailing aspect and hair blown about her face. I’m not sure that my intentions came through entirely, but it was all right. Not what that pumpkin deserved, but I hope it was not too embarrassed by the countenance I carved.
I salvaged the seeds for roasting and used the sections I cut out for a light pumpkin soup.
The post-Hallowe’en weather was cool and the pumpkin-lantern held its shape for a solid week. No squirrel nibbled on it; no neighborhood hooligans laid a hand on it. It stayed on our front step until it suddenly collapsed on itself and had to be resigned to the compost bin. But with me I still carry the glow of that pumpkin, of the candle the lit it, and of the kindness of Joseph, king of the produce aisle.
There was not one pumpkin in sight.
Not even one of those white ghost-pumpkins.
