Feliz Dia de los Muertos

Get out your sugar skulls and marigolds -- it's that time again! I don't know where our sugar skull mold is, so I guess we won't have any today. It's good to have a day to remember those we miss. My folks sent a number of articles from their local paper that explained the holiday for folks new to it. Not surprisingly, there are big celebrations in Las Cruces.



I think I was first introduced to the celebration in a Ray Bradbury short story, "The Next in Line," from The October Country, one of those linchpins of my life (along with Alice in Wonderland, Shrieks at Midnight and the Mary Poppins books). Living in Tejas for the last few years, we were more easily steeped in the celebrations. There seems much to value in this attitude toward death. No one really wants to think about its inevitability, but the silence more common in our culture seems to fuel our grief rather than relieve it.

Tonight our college will feature a bad poetry reading to celebrate the day -- what could be more appropriate?