Hallowe'en

Happy Hallowe'en

It's October 31st,  Hallowe'en. (I keep wanting to put an okina instead of an apostrophe, so habitual has become my habit of trying two spell Hawai ‘an properly). It's the anniversary of my father's death, in 1986.  He died when I was thirty three, thirty one years ago. He's been gone for almost half my life--dying when I was the age Jesus was when he died. This holiday used to bring me childish pleasure, now it ushers in the season of death.  Our big accident, mom's and mine, happened Thanksgiving week end. She died from the injuries she sustained in it on Christmas Eve of 2009, eight years ago. So much for the autumnal holidays. Autumnal is right. This holiday calls up demons. This holiday melds the mask to the face.

This time of year I often feel my anger, such as it is, burbling up, asphalt through mud and water.  Anger on my parents' behalf. Anger at myself for my imagined disappointing them. Anger at myself for disappointing myself.  It comes up from underneath the guilt of failure, the shame of disappointment and frustration not mastered.  It's the depression of the beginning of the end of the year, even here in Hawaii where seasonal change is much more subtle. It's hard to peel the mask off.

James Ensor, The Entry of Christ into Brussels, 1889, 170" x 200", The Getty, Los Angeles

The masked masses of Brussels conduct a mardi gras parade led by death and Bishop Santa Claus.  Jesus is all but lost in the middle background, haloed and on an ass, flooded in the midst of a sea of caricatures and clowns under the banner "Vive La Sociale", all bearing down on the viewer, threatening to overtake her.  The huge painting was rejected by Les Vingt, an alternative arts organization which Ensor helped to found.  Though it had prominent place in his home and studio, it was never again exhibited publicly until 1929.  Just the same it became, in its impastos smeared with a palette knife, jarring chromatic contrasts, and harsh caricatures of the artist's public, foundation for European Expressionism in the twentieth century.