Hello October...

”I am so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers.”
-Anne Shirley

Oh, my Anne, I am too.

October is my most favorite month of the year. October is beautiful and full of all of my favorite things-baseball and football and cider and pumpkins. (Not to belabor it, but I chose October for my wedding because I love it so much, and I think that if I ever married again, I just might choose it all over again.)

October is my time for very seasonal reading and for movies that the girls and I (mostly) love. Our schedule is just about to wind down, volleyball is ending, the nights are getting longer-it’s the perfect time of year for our movie nights and long book chapters because we are (blessedly) home.

Here are a few of our favorite fall things:

Hocus Pocus

My favorite Halloween movie of all time. Everyone loves this movie, so I won’t go on and on, other than to say that I saw this movie with April in the theater, and I loved it so much that I named my most beloved pink Aspire Dani Jo, with the Dani being in honor of Dani in this movie (the Jo was so that I could shorten it to DJ, in honor of DJ Tanner on Full House-these two facts alone tell you a lot about me at 16 years old).

Betsy finds Hocus Pocus terrifying. Betsy is an HSP (which just stands for Highly Sensitive Person). Figuring that out has helped us a great deal-Betsy gets overwhelmed by certain things, especially by books or movies that have a theme of people being in trouble or being punished, particularly for something they didn’t do. When she was about 7, I read Matilda to her, and it was almost painful for her to hear, and I just couldn’t figure out why. Being able to recognize this in her has helped us so much and it has allowed me to understand her reluctance to not only certain movies and books, but to things that I find super fun, like amusement parks. Knowing this has also made Betsy aware of those limitations and she has gotten so that she will try things more easily, sort of pushing it aside, if that makes sense. As her mom, I must say that the most amazing thing to me is that Betsy knows her limits and if something really bothers her, she simply does not participate, no matter what other people might say to her. I admire her understanding of what she is able to handle-there are many times that I wish I had her resolve.

Anyway, all of that is just to say, Betsy genuinely thinks that Hocus Pocus is scary. But she has been watching it since she was about 5, so she grins and bears it because she knows how very much I love it, and how it is our way to usher in fall.

Ghostbusters

So, I watched Ghostbusters with my parents and April in a theater when I was 5 and she was 4. (This is one of 2 times that she and I can remember of seeing a movie in a theater with my parents.) We were *scared to death.* We did not understand that it was a comedy at all. So, that HSP thing, Betsy comes by it honestly.

The girls and I watched the new female-driven Ghostbusters as a part of this lineup this year. It was okay-not great by any means, but not as horrible as I had anticipated based on reviews. As for the original and its sequel, they are a normal part of our Halloween lineup, and parts of it make me laugh out loud and parts of it I just think are plain weird.

Casper

I love this one. And “Remember Me This Way” was the John Glenn High School Class of 1997 class song. So, it checks all the boxes-romance, bathroom humor that the girls love, and convincing myself that I graduated, oh, surely just about 5 years ago.

We watch several others in the rotation-Hotel Transylvania (not my favorite, but the girls love it), The Addams Family (the movies with Angelica Houston and Raul Julia, and also a tv movie that I bought in 7th grade from a book order that we religiously watch on Halloween Eve), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Beetlejuice, Clue, and a couple of Munsters movies that star the original cast.

As for books, we are currently reading Harry Potter, which feels deliciously correct at this time of year.

I myself am having a seasonal theme to my reading stack at the moment and I have read a couple of books that have been excellent.

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning

I just finished this last night and, oh, was it a delight. It’s the backstory of Ursula from the Little Mermaid-I am a complete sucker for a good fairy tale retelling and this one was so, so good. (On that note, I watched a PBS special several years ago now that was a ballet of the Little Mermaid told from the actual Hans Christian Anderson story, which is of course much sadder and maddening than the Disney version and it had a profound impact on me.) This story is in the vein of that original story and it, too, is heartbreaking.

Toil and Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe

Jessica Spotswood has edited 3 of these short story anthologies for young adults about empowered women, and this one seemed fitting to my fall reading list. I love short stories (my sister does not at all) and most of these were right up my alley. “If you don't feel safe enough to yell back, you're not safe enough.” That resonated.

My stack of autumn books is pretty big, and I still have a few weeks left until all I want to do is watch all the Hallmark Christmas movies, so hopefully there are a few more gems to be mined.

“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”

Oh, Anne girl. Me too.