From One Raven's Eye

Page 7

Hey you. Boo. Or booshoo as they say year round in Ontario. By the time most of you read this, some of us will have dressed up and undressed for another year by now. Some will have said, 'no way, never,' again. Some wouldn't have, wished they had but got shyed out instead. What we are talking about of course is Hallowe'en masks and shyness too.

Last year was the first time in my adult life I got dressed up for the candle in the pumpkin occasion. To tell you the truth, though, a witch made me do it, sort of.

"If you can give me one good reason," said my wife who left for work last October 31st dressed as a witch already, "I'll never ask you again."

She worked at a daycare so had sane reasons to be made up that day. We had heard of a masquerade dance planned as the social event of a Native conference going on down the street.

"Because I have always been an Indian and I have never wanted to be anything else in my whole life. Not even for a few hours. Not even for a single night."

She rolled her eyes skyward in disbelief. "How about those Indians in Saskatoon, then?" she asked.

You see in our thirteen Hallowe'ens together we've gone to these dress up deals almost every year. At the friendship centre dances in Saskatoon the place would be packed with Aboriginal versions of ghosts, goblins and other imported terrors.

Before I got my hair severely cut this past January, I remember saying something like, "with these braids hanging down past my waist I really can't be anything, else, can I?"

"I guess you'll just have to be a little scaredy cat sitting on the fence again," she huffed.

Now it may have been that this talk was happening for the thirteenth time or some other spooky factor that suddenly caused me to blurt this out. "Alright, alright. So I'm shy, okay? Even under a mask or facepaint I'll feel like an idiot. I have enough trouble being myself without trying to figure out how to be something else. How is a person supposed to have fun when all they want to do is run off and hide. There, that's a whole lists of reasons right there. Is that good enough for ya or what?"

Well, when we showed up at that dance all but three of us were dressed up as 20th century Indians in high heels or a shirt and tie.

"Gee these Indians are all in leadership positions. They aren't supposed to be scared of anything. "That's what my hooked nosed partner said to me just after we got there."

Well to make matters worse, they had a contest to see whose costume was the best. A big woman with lips like Mick Jagger took first. A conniving witch came second and a green skinned alien with long, silver braids and burning red ears finished third. Since no one there knew me, because prizes sometimes go to my head and because I started to feel better about having done what was for me a tough thing, I relaxed enough to dance.

"See, it's not soooo bad," the witch whispered, twirling past me like they are famous for doing on gruesome occasions.

"I'm gonna change my name and move out of town anyway," I replied. One of the rules of successful marriage is to never give in too easily even when your partner is right.

Humility is one thing, total surrender another. This applies especially if you are hooked up with a witch or a personality that rhymes with it.

When we sat down I said, "well, thanks for talking me into this after all this time. You were right, this is kind of fun. And the best part is of course, because these people are all from out of town, nobody even knows us."

Just as the words crossed the table, who should plunk themselves down there but Eric. We hadn't seen him in years. Lori introduced herself then pointed a knobby green finger straight at me when Eric asked, "where's Charles?" It's behaviour like that that makes witches an endangered species.

Well, you and I have both been through moments just like that one. Like the time you walked round all day with your tee shirt on inside out. Or when you stand up to speak and your oice comes out in a squeak. Instead of shrinking in the chair like an alien with any luck at all, I felt like the chair itself was raising up. Just when it reached the level of a baby's high chair, the silver space collar of mine started to feel like a big bib.

"Boy, Charles, you got guts," Eric said, shoving out his hand to say hello.

My eyes were spinning in my head and all around the room in awful relief. Doing that made me see some of the looks on those other unpainted brown faces.

Some had an expression that said, "livin' in the city has driven that one crazy." But most of those faces were saying instead, "if only I had the nerve, too."

Unless being so is your personal style, shyness is a mask that's worth it to just yank off once in a while. If you've the slightest inclination to, dressing up for Hallow'en is as good a time as any to give challenging your safe little self another try.

We're going to another dress up party again this year. Even though I sound brave, this masquerade stuff still makes me slightly scared. So if I see you looking a little unsure of yourself too, let's both pretend we've been doing this for a long time, that it's good for us and, if none of that works, we can always pretend we don't know each other.

See you all in November.