IT'S 4:15 p.m. I stand amazed at the doorstep of my friend Karl's room as I survey the Lawn teeming with hundreds of kids in their adorable costumes, tailing one another in an interminable line to receive pounds of sweet love. I have never seen anything like this. South Korea's got Seoul but not Halloween. Seeing a twenty-one year-old Snow White having just as swell a time as a barely four-foot-tall blond Ninja Turtle, I get a sense that Halloween is germane to all its participants -- except me. I am hopelessly clueless as to what's going on and I feel so, well, foreign.
The last time I felt such an acute sense of being an outsider dates back to my Connecticut high school days when, out of sheer frustration over my inability to speak English fluently, I asked my best friend to punch my shoulder really hard every single time I incorrectly employed articles. (By the third day I stopped talking to him.)
Maybe it's natural for me to feel irrelevant. After all, this is my very first Halloween, and I have learned, literally seconds ago, that handing out candies is a necessary, but not sufficient response to Trick-or-Treat (apparently, you reply Happy Halloween as well). Still, I know I am so not in, and that feeling is all too poignant.
For what feels like eons now, Malinda, another helping hand in dispensing buckets of confection to Charlottesville children, has been sharing her thoughts as if they were Seinfeld reruns on TBS: "OH MY GOD, Halloween is my new favorite holiday!" (It's a holiday, really?); "I am definitely gonna dress up as Midget Mac tonight!" (Who's Midget Mac?); "Kang, would you like to get these (Dum Dum Pops and Sweet Tarts) when you go out trick-or-treating? Kids like cool candies (Starburst and Butterfinger), not those." (Do they care?) In any case, Malinda delightfully relishes every aspect of Halloween while I remain completely oblivious.
There is very little time for me to muse though. It's Trick-or-Treat everywhere, and kids are brutally quick to look askance at my not-so-nimble hands when I fail to pay attention. So, without really knowing how to relate to Halloween, I just keep watching, trying, learning. I wonder about my friend Dan's costume (Dr. Jekyll or Charles Dickens?). I rejoice in the angelic smile of a freckled Hermione in her Gryffindor robe. I take profound pleasure in sharing buckets of candy I did not pay for, and even more profound pleasure constantly savoring them.
And then, all of a sudden, in the midst of all these revelations, I make a connection between the ritual of Halloween and the overarching narrative of all of us here at the University of Virginia. That is, we have been out trick-or-treating all our lives and the common bond of Halloween binds us all.
Our daily Halloween is easily overlooked as its costume is not as recognizable, its greetings not as friendly, and its reward not as immediate. But, friends, we have been making the rounds, knocking on the doors of opportunity. Though each of us represents a unique character with a unique set of superpowers, we are common in that we have been making rounds every single day to better our lives. Whether you are from Amsterdam or Ann Arbor, whether you are African American or Latin American, whether your family is well-off or underprivileged, if you are part of the Academical Village today, you know, you have been making rounds, knocking on a whole lot of doors.
To be sure, each of us has visited different houses in different neighborhoods. Some of us have made more rounds than others. And, no doubt, some of us have received more sweets. But that's no matter, for we have all arrived on the Lawn of opportunity between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to enhance our life long round of trick-or-treating.
Sure, growing up in a dilapidated neighborhood of the Bronx and having to attend an under-funded public school could equate to an hour's delay. Maybe, being a bright gal from Virginia Beach determined to prove Larry Summers wrong by becoming a world renowned physicist is tantamount to a five-minute head start. Perhaps, not having English as your mother-tongue cancels out having conscientious parents who support you in every endeavor. But, none of these changes the fact that, one way or another, we have reached the Lawn in time. And that definitely means we get to go trick-or-treating in Jefferson's lengthening shadow for four years.
Now, it's shortly after 6 p.m. I have just given out my last mini bag of Skittles to a skinny Mr. Incredible. Altogether satisfied, I walk back into Karl's room to retrieve my backpack, only to find "pregnant" Malinda cleaning up the floor. Though awestruck for a moment at what seems like the re-enactment of the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception, I soon learn that her gestational swelling is caused not by consuming but rather by covertly carrying an entire bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (of course, one of her cool candies). Though I conjecture that a kangaroo costume might have been more appropriate for such an act, I just smile, for I know she is also a kid out trick-or-treating on Halloween.
D. Ryan Kang is a fourth year in the College of Arts & Sciences.
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