Walking through the fallen leaves

Squire’s Castle, Northeast Ohio

I can still smell the aroma of fallen leaves, shades of burnt oranges and red that gathered on the sidewalks. Sometimes they are dry and crunch under your feet. Other days, after the rain, they are wet and slippery, you have to be careful not to fall. But they always smell the same. A smell of the changing season, a smell of walking home from school. A smell of home.

But the clearest memory I have of this smell is trick-or-treating as a child on Halloween. Going house to house in Burton, Ohio. My friends and I dressed in our costumes, sometimes with our jackets stuffed underneath and poking out of our sleeves as it was usually getting chilly, the days of autumn quickly giving way to winter. As the afternoon turned to dusk, we would take off, our candy baskets swaying from side-to-side as we ran up to each door: Trick or Treat! When we were younger, a cohort of our parents would be trailing behind, giving us enough distance to imagine we were on our own adventures, grown-up just like the witches and superheroes we were pretending to be. Who we believed ourselves to be.

I haven’t given much thought about Halloween in the last years. I haven’t trick-or-treated since I was a child, and I’ve been living in countries that don’t even celebrate Halloween, or perhaps it’s becoming a commercial holiday, another excuse to sell specially branded candy and decorations. It wasn’t so commercialized back then.

In those days, we would carve pumpkins at home and set them out on the doorstep. Some people would put spiders and cobwebs on their front porches. It was more creative back then, and each house had its own unique touch.

I started thinking about Halloween because I realized my child likely won’t have the same Halloween experience I did. Even if we were to visit the United States in October, Halloween in Burton was special. A small town about a square-mile wide, we knew most of our neighbors. We could hit most of the streets. Back then, in the days before technology invaded every corner of our lives, we had a bubble of safety and innocence that doesn’t exist anymore. Things could just be fun. Our parents would beg us to stay still for a moment so they could take a photo on the disposable camera to print out at the supermarket a few days later. Inevitably the photos would be grainy and dark, but we always had huge smiles, not posing but impatiently waiting to be told, “Got it!” and we would take off running again, having the time of our lives.

I remember coming home at the end of the evening, and my friends and I would turn over our candy baskets to see our treasure. I, of course, would sort my candy into piles to see how much of each kind I had received. Sometimes we would trade our favorites. Writing this, I realize it could be read as a great romanticization of the event, looking back with rose-colored glasses. But it really was that good. It really was that special. And it’s something that no matter where I live, I don’t think I can ever get again. It was unique to that place and that time, and that’s that.

Sicily has its own traditions, connected to the Festa dei Morti, the feast of the dead. A festival with its own tradtions meant to honor our departed. Around this time, it starts to get chilly here, too, and you can smell the chestnuts roasting from the street sellers who cook them on chimneys on the street corners. In the bakeries, beautifully decorated Frutta di Martorana (almond cookies shaped and painted as fruits), and tetù fill the shelves. I grew up making tutus, as we called them, in recipes passed down by our Sicilian matriarchs, a cocoa-spiced cookie that we usually make for Christmas.

By virtue of the passing of time and the changing of place, I know my child’s childhood will be very different from mine, as mine was from my parents’. I don’t so much grieve that fact, as much as I just wish I could convey that unique smell of the leaves on the cement, and the feeling of exuberance as we ran from one house to the next, innocent of all that was to come, and that joy and excitement when a small candy bar was dropped in our baskets. Even though we asked, it still was never expected, we didn’t feel entitled to it. It was always a surprise, and as such, it became the greatest gift we could be thrilled to receive.

Tell me, what is that feeling?

love,

greer