Octobertide 2020

I love the fall. I love the greying and darkening of the days. I love the cool nips in the air as the season progresses. I love long evening walks that end up in graveyards. I love creaky old houses with tales to tell. I love the way the shadows have their own rules.  I love how good a hot drink tastes on a cold afternoon. I can't get enough of my neighbors' front yard horror decorations. I love the entire genus of Corvus right down to their six front toes. Autumn leaves, pumpkin patches, and gusty afternoons as cool fronts push summer out of the way are all a great joy to me. 

For me, the season that culminates in Halloween does not begin in October. It starts at the beginning of September. The indelible imprint of the new schoolyear, coupled with the  seasonal change in the part of the world I live in plus the unmistakable shortening of the days, makes September 1st the year's true meridian. The cold months that come after Halloween are an entirely separate season. At midnight on All Souls Day, the whole world shifts into a different gear, a great juxtaposition of darkness and cheer, slumber and preparation. But from the beginning of September until the night that little ghouls and goblins fill the streets, I am a devotee of haunted places, long evening shadows, and things that go bump the night.

Octobertide is the most fitting word I can come up with that describes this magical arc of time.  

Last year I really wanted to mark the season. Just celebrating Halloween was no longer enough for me. I needed to deliberately celebrate each day and every day of Octobertide with a specific activity. Surprisingly, I kept up with this idea for most of September and October. Here is the final list from last year:

  1. Hiked to a ruin in the middle of woods. (Would have been better at night!)
  2. Updated my Google profile pic to something more fitting the Octobertide season
  3. Listened to a cosmic horror podcast on Pseudopod ("the Seance")
  4. Listened to an album of atmospheric Gothic horror music.
  5. Took a long walk down a dark road on a moonless night.
  6. Ate pumpkin pie.
  7. Discovered a new horror writer (unxmaal.com)
  8. Made my sweetheart a bouquet of fall foliage plucked from the edge of a field (in the future, I shall eschew the spear thistle but include more henbit and goosefoot)
  9. Indulged in the spirit of the season by watching another horror movie (Frankenstein Must Die!)
  10. Hung a pumpkin wreath on front door
  11. Took time to appreciate the otherworldly art of Bernie Wrightson (RIP)
  12. Watched The Halloween Tree on outdoor projector on the first truly cold night of the season
  13. First family gathering around an evening bonfire
  14. Took a nighttime stroll through a cemetery 
  15. Watched an absolutely bat sh— crazy “found footage” horror flick (The Devil’s Doorway)
  16. Started researching my own town’s local haunting (maybe next year after this pandemic lets up I might get to arranging visits to some of these places)
  17. Went on a early-Halloween front-yard-decorations hunt around my town
  18. Took a long break from everything to enjoy the fall weather
  19. Set out the skull centerpiece on the family dining table
  20. Remembered where I was / what I was doing when the first note of Fall color revealed itself in the local leaves
  21. Kept up with O.T.I.S.
  22. Watched another bat-s*!t-crazy horror movie (Wounds)
  23. Noticed the first autumn leaf to drift to the ground right in front of me
  24. Began reading Ghosts of Berks County
  25. On the loveliest autumn evening so far, went on a long nighttime stroll all around my town and counted black cats
  26. Suggested to my wife we watch some horror; she agreed then turned on the “debate” (remember, this was 2020)
  27. Sat quietly on a grey Octobertide morning and listened to the crows
  28. Watched the first ten of Haunted Blowfish’ “100 Years of Horror”
  29. Indulged in nyctohylophilia (Google it before you judge!)
  30. Stayed up late by the bonfire on the first full moon of October, wishing the clouds would just part for a moment 
  31. Watched a John Waters horror flick, Suburban Gothic
  32. Read the poetry of E.A. Poe by an outdoor fire on a cold Octobertide night
  33. Hit up a pumpkin patch
  34. Stood quietly for a while and watched the autumn leaves drizzle down
  35. Watched Carnival of Souls
  36. Visited the grave of E.A. Poe in Baltimore 
  37. Watched Phoenix Forgotten
  38. Decorated the house for Halloween
  39. Went on a ghost tour in a very old and purportedly haunted building
  40. Watched a truly unnerving horror movie, The Atticus Project
  41. Put together a Halloween-themed cathouse for one of our cats
  42. Finished reading Ghosts of Berks Country
  43. Drove around and looked at Halloween decorations
  44. Perused more spooky-themed old animated cartoons Walt Disney, Columbia, and Warner Bros
  45. On a clear night, spent the better part of an hour outside, supine, staring up at the endless indifference of the cosmic abyss
  46. Went inside and made Halloween cookies
  47. Updooted every Spooktober post on Reddit
  48. Hiked a purportedly haunted Civil War battlefield
  49. Started re-binging the Magnus Archives
  50. Took another solitary moonlit hike, on one of the creepiest roads on the edge of my town, with a flashlight that was starting to fail, listening to a horror podcast.
  51. Prepared Halloween costumes
  52. Followed a gaggle of ghost and ghouls about the town, trying to guess which houses would hand out candy and which to avoid
This year's list in in the making and I am eager to discover new ways to celebrate Octobertide.





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