The rituals of October

When I used to work in Russia, I noticed that Russians aren’t very big on the horror genre — certainly not as big as Americans are. It made sense. Real life in Russia can be spooky enough, particularly in the absence of an effective governing apparatus, a general lack of safety culture, a fair bit of legal nihilism, and so on. Anxiety felt reminiscent of a natural phenomenon there, as steady as the hum of flies thumping dully against the glass in a packed courtroom during yet another show trial — exhausting, endless, inevitable.

Now, it seems, more Americans than usual can relate to how the Russians feel. I am a huge fan of ghouls and witches myself, but the blessed Halloween season is a different experience amid a real-life plague and an election season categorized by bitter division and rage. It’s a bit too real, even for the more privileged among us.

However, there is another important aspect to horror, and to ghost stories in particular, and it goes beyond the human desire to experience fear in a controlled environment, which we can disengage from at will.

A lot of the rituals of October — its crickets gradually growing silent in the night, its winds turning ragged, dragging leaves across the pavement — are also simply about ruminating on mortality. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, pandemic or no pandemic.

Death is the only certainty we have in life. Our attempts to shield ourselves from this certainty frequently corrupt our pursuit of happiness. How much more would we do with ourselves, how much kinder would we be, if we allowed ourselves to remember that nothing is forever and tomorrow is not promised to us?

For this reason, I am a big fan of the work of the work of Mike Flanagan, the director of the Haunting of Hill House and, now, the Haunting of Bly Manor. A writer I admire, Laurie Penny, teamed up with Flanagan for episode four of the Bly Manor series — a searing look at how the unsaid can build between two well-meaning people before an inevitably cruel shattering. If series episodes could be tarot cards, this one would be the Tower.

What’s particularly admirable about the Haunting series, and Laurie’s amazing contribution to it, is how it links ghosts to grief. Hauntings are scary, sometimes even violent, but they would not hold such powerful meaning across cultures if it wasn’t for how deeply human beings feel loss.

In life, I’ve had my religious moments, and my “there’s nothing beyond death” moments, but in recent years, I’ve settled on a firm belief in physics and the idea that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my own, very limited philosophy. I’ve certainly had unexplained events happen, and I’ve even had the dead show up in dreams and tell me about things that would later come to pass — but who knows, really, what was up with that.

What I do know for certain is that Einstein was right when he said that the difference between present, past, and future is a persistent illusion, and that we really shouldn’t fear death as much as we do — even though that fear is also perfectly natural.

What I’m also fairly certain of is that the dead do look in on us from time to time. How else to explain the ancient woman on the streetcar from a few months ago, who winked at me above her face mask and say, “Did your grandmama used to be a doctor, sugar?” The younger woman who was with her explained that I was being mistaken for someone else, but my paternal grandmother, who died in 2018, was a doctor, an infectious diseases expert, and I had just spent that particular pandemic morning missing her very fiercely, and, well, then that happened.

When we are able to put things right, the hauntings grow less scary, don’t they? The point of the fear is to urge us to some sort of action, so that we can achieve, if not justice, then perhaps greater self-awareness, and with it, a measure of peace.

I have tried to be kinder in this life since losing both of my grandmothers. I have repaired, to the best of my ability, my often difficult relationship with both of my parents. I have urged myself to be less of a bitch, to be honest. I have learned to value family time more. I have tried to be there for my son as much as I can — and I have learned to give myself a break, and to pursue my fun, in order to be a better mother to him.

It’s not a lot, but it’s something. It’s why I remain so grateful to the spooky season, and to the wonderful writers and directors who are able to channel it into something truly gorgeous. It’s a season that’s more than its mists. It’s a reminder to bite the fruit before it’s rotten — and to be grateful for it.

Image credit: Epic Images