Faces are infinitely interesting topo maps contoured by bones, fatty bits, orifices, and sensible sensory inputs that create an phenomenal ecosystem for flooding or farming, all within such a remarkably small surface area compared to the rest of our body. We have amazing heads. And, that’s why I love pumpkins so much.
Pumpkins are the perfect canvass to translate your ‘inner face’ onto a very big fruit. I love diving into our pumpkin heads with disgust and vigor, and somehow, I muster the courage to scrape and save all of the seeds and then eat them all in one sitting. With resplendent goo all over our hands and kitchen, we begin to contemplate the perfect place to plant our face. Who will we be this year? What inner-face is dying to come out?
In thinking about my past year, and the plethora of so-called merit badges I should have earned, my inner face should be the opposite of a girl scout – maybe it should be a bit messy and twisted, like the drag version of Christine O’Donnell. That could be freeing. It’s expected in our house, when my kids who are pretty good all year want to be something dangerous and scary. Or when my boss, who’s concentrated perdurable charm manifests into Dexter, I understand.
I heard someone talking the other night about rising above the obstacles in your life, recognizing the hard times, and using them to lift you higher. He was a comedian on the radio and in a serious sensitive moment – he was talking about watching an eagle fly into a huge headwind, a storm was approaching, the bank of clouds were ominous and the eagle kept flying at it, not fast, but enough so that he got a lift above it – the bird used what appeared to be a wall of a storm and flew over it. Maybe that’s what Halloween is about – recognizing an inner face, so that we can rise above it. We dance and fill ourselves with sweets, because that’s what our inner ghoul loves, and before we head into winter, we’ve made amends with ourselves – inside and out.
If you kept your pumpkin out in your garden, watch it wither and sink back into the earth, just in time for winters first coat of snow, wrapping us in a blanket of satisfaction – that another year of challenges and triumphs will come again, with new faces to explore.
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Having stumbled upon In the American West by Richard Avedon in the ‘80’s, Leslie Edelman’s casual life on a central valley vineyard became less ordinary. Since then, Leslie has seen the lights of NYC, written poems to the winds of Morocco, and has worked in Advertising on some pretty big brands; Yahoo!, Gap/Old Navy, MSDW, Nike, Kodak, SanDisk, Wired, MTV. More recently she was the Associate Publisher for Workbook, a strategic marketing partner for commercial artists. Home in San Francisco, she is happily married with two children, two dogs, two cats, two guinea pigs and one fish with a view of the ocean.
