The Season of the Witch

 At 47 years old, I have apparently entered the stage of life where I can decide to become the mysterious caretaker of a haunted cemetery for absolutely no reason other than it sounds fun.

And I’m leaning into it.

When I decided to turn my backyard into a haunted cemetery for Halloween, I knew I needed a costume.

Not just any costume. Something that fit the atmosphere.

I considered a witch. A ghost. Something a little glamorous, a little gothic, perhaps a little Stevie Nicks wandering through an abandoned graveyard.

I wasn’t trying to be Stevie Nicks, exactly.I wanted the feeling. The flowing fabric. The mysterious energy. The suggestion that I might know something about the spirits lurking among the tombstones.

You know. Casual Halloween attire.

I started digging through what I already owned. A long animal-print maxi skirt? Perfect. A long black cape? Even better. A collection of wigs in various colors and styles? Of course. Doesn’t everyone have one of those?

Apparently, my closet had been preparing for this moment for years.

I experimented with different looks, eventually settling on long gray hair, pale makeup, dramatic eyes, and dark burgundy lips. Add a cape, a cameo, some old-fashioned keys, and a lantern, and suddenly I looked like someone who had been guarding the cemetery since approximately 1876. Exactly the look I was going for.

The makeup was an adventure of its own. There is something simultaneously hilarious and unsettling about standing in your bathroom deliberately trying to make yourself look older, paler, and slightly deceased. Most mornings, I’m trying to accomplish the exact opposite.

But there I was, studying my reflection and wondering whether my cheekbones looked sufficiently sunken. I tried different combinations, made adjustments, and finally decided the hooded cape really completed the look. I was no longer a woman wearing a costume.

I was a character.

And every mysterious cemetery caretaker needs a companion.

Enter Addy.

My sweet dog had been assigned the role of bat. Not metaphorically. She had an actual bat costume, complete with wings and a ring for her leash.

So there we were.

A mysterious gray-haired cemetery caretaker carrying a lantern, accompanied by a little black bat who occasionally needed to stop and sniff the grass.
Terrifying.

I have no idea what Addy thought of the whole production, but I was delighted.

And somewhere during all this costume planning, I realized something.

I love that I still do things like this.

I love that I can spend an afternoon experimenting with makeup, rummaging through old clothes, and inventing a character for a party in my own backyard.

I love that getting older hasn’t made me less playful.

If anything, I think I’ve become more willing to embrace the ridiculous.

There was a time in my life when I might have worried about whether something was too much. Too dramatic. Too silly. Too unnecessary.

These days?

Give me the cape.

Give me the lantern.

Give me the gray wig and the dog dressed as a bat.

Life is serious enough without insisting that every moment of it has to be.

Sometimes you just need to become a mysterious woman wandering through a haunted cemetery.

Especially when the cemetery happens to be your own backyard.