Improvised rituals, mending my clothes and hoping it gets (a bit) colder soon
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I almost forgot Halloween this year. Bert is holding his annual party - now morphed into a costumed Dungeons & Dragons session with elevated snacks - this weekend, and so a dimly-lit part of my brain thought I could simply defer the 31st October and pretend nothing was happening.
Have I mentioned before that I’m the last person to absorb the implications of my own work? I think I possibly have.
Because when Halloween arrived, I felt unsettled. Something was stalking around my body which felt a lot like bitterness, and paranoia, and frustration, and hurt. All the dark things, out to play. They swam around me all day, and I wasn’t alone. Everyone else in the house was irritable too, restless and brittle.
Eventually, wanting to escape them, I took myself out for a walk, striding along the coast hoping that my legs would get tired. It was dusk, the air turning cold. The sunken sun washed the sky pink, and the sea fell still beneath it. There were people in costume on the beach in witches hats and masks, and the absurdity of it all softened me.
Halloween is so silly, and that’s the point. It’s a gateway drug, a way into feeling itself. Yes, the contemporary version is a commercial hellscape and mostly misses the point, but it’s functional in a way. It’s there for people who would otherwise feel nothing, or assailed by a baffling parade of demons. It is there to allow those feelings to resolve into grief.
November arrives in a sequence of days centred on those we have lost. The ghoulish Halloween dissolves our protections, ready for the purer encounters with our ancestors on All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day. In England, those days are largely forgotten, but around the world, people began this month feeling contact with those they have lost, finding a way to tend to their memories.
It’s not too late. We, who have broken the ritual calendar, can find our own peculiar ways to mend it. A candle lit or a glass raised on 6th November works just as well. But next year, next year, maybe we can find a way to do it in company. Maybe one year, it will become an assumption, rather than a weird thing we have to explain.
During my walk, I got cold enough to see sense, and diverted to the local Co-op, where I bought up supplies for a silly Halloween feast. Mummy dogs, zombie baked potatoes, Oreo bats and screaming doughnuts: terrible food, served by candlelight. It defrosted all of us, and let us reminisce about Halloweens past, when my mum often used to visit.
I’m glad we found the moment, even if it was improvised. But I’m glad, too, for November, the solemn days before the midwinter feast. I feel at home there.
What I’ve been up to
October has been a month of catching up. For the past two years, I’ve felt continuously behind on absolutely everything: the life admin, the smooth running of my house, the creative projects that seem to bank up around me. October was a month of rolling up my sleeves and tackling it all. It felt a lot like clearing debris from a clogged river.
I shared a creative prompt about clearing clutter and also wrote about the ways that chaos and forgetting can be fertile creative practices. Behind the scenes, I peeped at my financial arrangements through my fingers like a terrified child and began to get them in order. I took bags and bags of old clothes to the charity shop and wondered if I’d ever reach the bottom of the pile of things that need to be removed from my life to breathe again. And I worked through my to-do list like a caterpillar munching methodically through a slightly bitter leaf. I feel better for it all.
But I did get to work on a range of excellent creative wheezes that I can’t tell you about yet, bwahahaha.
In the meantime, I shared podcast episodes with Elizabeth Gilbert, Sarah Wilson and Kathryn Nicholai, and Mini Breaks on puzzles, Suzanne Ciani and Parks & Rec (before settling into a little break). In The Library, we launched the Goblin Market readalaong and I got obsessed with what it meant. A conversation with Rebecca Armstrong and Freya Rohn helped to untangle it, or at least to process my feelings.
In the meantime, I shared podcast episodes with Elizabeth Gilbert, Sarah Wilson and Kathryn Nicholai, and Mini Breaks on puzzles, Suzanne Ciani and Parks & Rec (before settling into a little break). In The Library, we launched the Goblin Market readalaong and I got obsessed with what it meant. A conversation with Rebecca Armstrong and Freya Rohn helped to untangle it, or at least to process my feelings.
I left the house, too! I appeared at OneTrackMinds [tag] at the beautiful Wilton’s Music Hall - and loved it - and hosted Sarah Moss at BookBar in Chelsea as she launched her delightful midwinter novella, The Winter Guest.
This is my version of a quiet month. Roll on midwinter.
New Subscriber giveaway
A new box is ready to give away to one lucky person who starts or renews a year’s subscription in November. This one contains a signed copy of Wintering, a copy of Kerri Andrews’ anthology, Women Walking, a refillable ink pen, Aurora Borealis ink, Blackwing pencils, a great notebook, plus exclusive Clearing postcards, bookmarks and stickers. We’ll pick a winner at random at the end of the month.
Congratulations to Gesine, who won October’s new subscriber draw!
This month’s online retreat
Thanks to everyone who joined us for October’s retreat, which was all about the things that haunt us - it was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours!
This month’s retreat is on Saturday 21st November. We’ll be pointing our compass towards midwinter, thinking about how we can prepare for the onslaught of December and the darkest days of the year. What actually matters during the overwhelming month to come? What can we drop, and what should we cling to? How can we make sure we meet our own needs amid the clamour?
I hope to see some of you there!
November notions
Waiting for the leaves to fall off the ash tree that overhangs my garden. It all happens in one day and it’s imminent. I am readying my rake.
The UK government is officially advising us to stockpile food. Apocalyptic, yes, but I was BORN TO DO THIS.
Can it please get a tiny bit colder? I keep going out in a coat and ending up too hot.
Making porridge with steel-cut oats. It takes longer but the reward is a certain toothsome nuttiness.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Bold, original and with so much to say about female desire. Yes, there’s gore, but it’s camp gore.
Playing Carcassonne Labyrinth, a brilliant marriage of two board games.
Restoring old clothes. I took in a skirt that was always too big, tightened buttons on all my jackets and darned the little holes left in sweaters when I cut the label out. Feeling v. Make Do And Mend.
Went to see Garry Starr’s Classic Penguins - books, clowning and nudity. It was hilarious and I commend it to anyone who is not offended by a lot of penis. I mean a lot.
Love that the new hip snack in Copenhagen is… bread and cheese.
Tove Jansson’s edition of The Hobbit is finally out in English! Could I finally enjoy this book? Not sure.
Enduring the Celebrity Traitors hangover. Pining after James Acaster and his very particular moral universe.
Until next month, take care,
Katherine
