sunday, thirty-one october: ace of cups
"aces mark the beginning of exciting new phases .. expect to enter a blissful time of health, joy, and friendship."
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Today I said goodbye to the apartment in Brooklyn--we moved last week, but we've been shuttling back and forth ever since, dealing with the eight million little things that didn't get packed up in time for the movers. And now it's done; for a few months now I've had a foot in two different homes, I suppose, and now it's down to one.
Before we left, I sat in the backyard one last time and said goodbye. And cried. That apartment was where Declan learned to walk. It was the nest where I recovered after my heart surgery. It saw us through the pandemic lockdowns--we started to treat the yard as an extra room. I worked out there most afternoons, we played board games out there for a whole summer, we ate dinner in the yard well past when the weather was really friendly enough. It was a good place to live for eight years.
Back in the Bronx, we made an exciting discovery: our neighborhood is a trick-or-treating hotspot. It also seems like the neighborhood culture is much less "go up and ring a doorbell" and much more "people sit out on their steps with bowls of candy." We saw a lot of people who'd gone all out with costumes--a small dog dressed up as a Vegas showgirl, a small girl as a rainbow fairy unicorn with light-up wings, Team Rocket pushing a stroller with a tiny Pikachu, an inflatable costume that turns you into a small version of yourself being captured by an alien. My own kiddo was a little Indiana Jones, and several people called him Dr Jones as they handed him his treats, so he's happy. We handed out many hundreds of pieces of candy and praised many of costumes and introduced ourselves to a few neighbors, then Declan and I had a quick Halloween party together on our Animal Crossing islands, and tonight I'll fall asleep to the soft blinking lights of the giant (really giant) glowing inflatable pumpkin head monster in the front yard across the street.
Here's my archaeologist, practicing his serious face while he waits for the deluge of trick-or-treaters.
