Escapist Post

Not being a fan of Halloween, I have my own kind of "ghost holiday". Rather than indulge in a holiday in which children are told to put on masks, knock on doors and threaten people in exchange for the cheapest wrapped candy imaginable, I've decided that the only spooky fantasy I'll engage in is...adolescent confession.

Recently, I've been adding to my music collection singers and songs which I have had in my head for as long as I can remember. Everything from "It's Not Easy Being Green" to "Pretty Women" from Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. The latter is connected to my escapist admission here. I have been forever in love with Len Cariou. Fine actor, singer and solid hunk even now, he is one of few men whose talent, crisp looks and presence overtake even lesbian me. So, here's my adolescent admission, my escape for the night back into the world in which I still believe in and am overwhelmed by charm, gender aside.

There are really just a few famous men for whom I fall in that hand-on-the-back-of the-head way. I've been lucky to know men and women in my life who have that power over me, too, like Karen Hunter, but I won't embarass others by naming them. It's an odd feeling, watching Len Cariou or Sir Anthony Hopkins or video of the late Jerry Orbach. They have this enormous credibility to me and they are so overwhelmingly large to me, as if they could spread their arms and catch me. I know it's a father fixation as much as anything, but it hardly matters when I see them perform. They're magical because they are so completely and greaselessly confident. Maybe it's their talent and energy-- they're features, voices and frames look as broad as the bottom of a tidal wave and as full of vitality.

So, there. That's my Halloween escape. No pressuring anyone for colored confectioners sugar aged to hardness and wrapped in what my students' call, "Pimp colored" paper. Just memory of lovely presences.

Couldn't we have a holiday in which we taught kids to treasure the people who fill them with awe? They could draw pictures of Spiderman or mom or their coach or their favorite movie star. And just share the shimmer. That's far sweeter.