Memento Mori
The REAL Halloween scare story
Over the entrance to the Capela do Ossos in Evora, Portugal, etched into the marble are the words warning, threatening, promising you
“We bones, lying here bare, await yours”
Who me? No not me. I’m still alive just browsing the wonders of church architecture. How could it possibly be that I have a connection to bones? Rather it is a refreshing reminder that we too will one day be a bag of bones. We all have had, are having now or will have in the future our slice of human suffering, our bones laid bare.
On this scariest of scary seasons, October 31st 2025, All Hallows Eve, we could react to the looming world chaos in a few ways. Acceptance, find peace in the inevitable. Detachment, box away human troubles, debates, or suffering. Enlightenment, strip your mind bare of falsehoods to see things as they really are. All the good and the bad mingling on Halloween night.
How about collectively embracing the bad news? Our modern world isn’t so good at that kind of nakedness. We have too many distractions. But what if we could steel one another, make each other stronger? Call it maturity, try to demystify or I like the word de- MYTH-ify if I can use this new word. We could move from the fairytales of youth to the memento mori of adulthood.
I like Fyodor Dostoevsky’s description of intentionally pouring water through a sieve. What are we doing and does it make a lick of difference? I don’t think I run so dark or deep as the confessions in “Notes from Underground”. Really, I’m more of a silent sufferer, more unsure, cozy in domestic bliss with lots and lots of regret. Like another famous literary character Anne Elliot, the heroine in Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” I want things to be nice. Is literature my escape? If it is then, I escape through novels and movies and history. I let my mind get lost in reading biographies and watching historical documentaries. It all feels so much more settled. The end of these stories has already happened. I can relax because there is a meaning to their madness.
This Halloween I would suggest a not so obviously scary movie. Jean Renoir’s
“The Southerner” 1945.
The plot is about a family of five trying to farm the land in Texas, the Tuckers. It seems like a tale of idyllic Americana. Hard work, family unity country neighborliness will win the day, and the family’s dreams will come true. A very mean and nasty farm neighbor warns us from the start that won’t come true. His farm seems to be a success but what was the price? The young Sam Tucker forges ahead; he will be a success. Myth after myth is busted in his tale. The neighbor is not willing to share, the farmer himself engages in violence, the wise old granny is complaining and selfish, the kids almost perish, hard work alone isn’t enough, and of course the weather has other plans.
It’s an old black and white movie that wakes us up to reality, some tough love through de-mythification.
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