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facts & arguments

STEVEN HUGHES FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL

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Costumes terrify me.

In Slovak, my mother tongue, the word kostym has at least two different meanings: First, it's a business suit, often worn by females, that is stern, monochromatic and form-fitting; designed to project authority as well as elegance, because in Slovak society working women are required to possess both. My mother's shoulder pads, printed blouses and low-heeled shoes came with a lack of hugs, a lot of reprimanding and an empty spot in the middle of my chest.

The second meaning of kostym is an outfit – often colourful and at times ridiculous – that may or may not be worn with a mask. I have dreaded such clothing since I was 4.

Once a year, the children in my preschool were required to arrive in costumes. Many parents welcomed this opportunity to show off their creative sewing skills, and their kids arrived in sequined fairy dresses, pirate attire or cute fluffy-animal costumes. Other parents, like my single mother, not only lacked sewing capabilities, but also money to purchase a ready-made costume. So, instead of the pink princess dress I longed for, I would be dressed in a hand-me-down clown costume. It came with big shoes, an orange wig, extravagant makeup and a whole lot of crying.

This was at Carnival, not Halloween. Unlike North Americans, Slovaks spend the last day of October remembering the dead, illuminating cemeteries with countless tea lights. The time to wear those often colourful and at times ridiculous outfits was in February, during the pre-Lent Carnival season. Strangely, this Catholic-rooted tradition was celebrated mainly during the anti-religious era of communism.

A few years later, when I attended elementary school, Carnival was no longer regularly celebrated. But as I began learning English in school, I realized that costume-wearing had not died out everywhere. Each lesson in my textbook contained a one-page blurb on the customs of the English-speaking world. All Hallows' Eve was one of them.

Yet, it was not the costumes or the free candy that fascinated me most about North American Halloween. It was learning that on that day, the barrier separating the worlds of spirits and humans weakens just enough to let ghosts and fairies through. I heard about the eternally-wandering soul of Jack of the Lantern and the power of hollowed-out pumpkins to ward off evil spirits.

I wasn't sure how these myths fit together, but they marked the beginning of my fascination with ghost stories, which I cultivated for many years. Spending one night a year on a pull-out couch in a horror-movie marathon, cozily shielded from the howling wind and biting rain of the Central European fall, became a tradition.

A decade later, now living in North America, I feel a familiar dread when Halloween costumes and decorations appear in shop windows.

What is it that causes the corners of my mouth to drop and the back of my throat to dry out upon the sight of fake cobwebs, dangling skeletons and a whole lot of clothing merchandise unashamedly lacking enough fabric for everyday wear?

Is it the prospect of wasting money, which I'm forced to spend on awkward attire that I may only wear once? Or the creepiness underlying the practice of sending children to strangers' homes to beg for cheap sugar bombs?

Is it the pressure to attend or host a house party full of inebriated, masked individuals, hoping someone knows that guy in the white hockey mask? Maybe it's my partner's expressed hope that I'll squeeze into a sexy pirate costume that will barely cover my unremarkable bottom? For me, it's all of the above.

But why do so many other adults cherish Halloween costume wearing? Children's joy at trick-or-treating aside, I wonder if there is fear lurking under all that cheap fabric. For one night of the year, we are allowed to wear our worst nightmares out in the open. We become those we fear.

But there is another type of fright, slightly removed from the primordial fear of darkness: It is the dread of contempt, finger-pointing, mocking and rejection. Halloween is one time we may be shielded from a society that worships commonness and conformity. Men may wear makeup. Ordinary-looking women may wear scanty outfits. Cloaks, wigs, ripped stockings, tall hats, fake teeth, long nails: Deviation from the normal is not only encouraged, but admired.

One night is all we get: After that, the pumpkins are smashed, the plastic decorations shelved and the costumes forgotten until next year. We go back to tolerating little beyond the ordinary.

Why not substitute our everyday social charade with a masquerade of honesty? But then, would I want to live in a world of walking ketchup bottles, half-naked nurses, Marvel superheroes, dubious Disney characters and sweet transvestites from Transsexual, Transylvania?

I could get used to it. As long as someone didn't try to fit me into a sexy clown costume.

Miriam Matejova lives in Vancouver.

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