Let’s Get Spooky!

This post originally appeared in my October 2024 newsletter.

As I sit here writing this, it is a cozy fall evening, perhaps one of the first truly chilly nights of the season. The wind whistles and scatters dried red, yellow, and orange leaves, and shadows grow longer under the fading light.

Inside?

Autumn twinkle lights offer a soft glow to write by while old black-and-white horror movies play in the background. Whisigothic decor (and some Halloween decorations too!) fills my home with a sense of magic. The kettle whistles in the kitchen, and a lazy pumpkin-spice cloud wafts from my jack-o-lantern mug. And two sleek black cats snooze nearby.

Readers, we are the picture of spooky autumnal coziness.

That, however, was not the case just a few nights ago when I decided to go to my first haunted house. You see, I had been feeling brave. I’d spent the last few years watching iconic horror movies each October, finding again and again that they were never as scary as I’d imagined them to be. I’d been reading horror books, too, and enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I found that the idea of these stories was often scarier to me than the actual story. While these terrible tales could be creepy or chilling or even downright terrifying, I always made my way through them all the better for having read or watched them.

All this to say that I felt VERY proud of myself for facing the things that once scared me and realizing that they weren’t all that scary. In fact, I was feeling downright smug about it!

Too smug, as it turned out.

It was with this deep sense of what I now know was overconfidence that I decided to try my first haunted house. I was offered free tickets, after all, and had a sister who was willing to brave the unknown with me.

The Universe was providing me with an opportunity to try something that might have been too much for me Once Upon a Time. I wasn’t such a big old scaredy cat anymore. Sure, the promo images for the event looked chilling, but I’d seen scarier images in some of the movies I’d watched. And I knew it wasn’t real, so…

How bad could it be?

Spoken like the protagonist in a horror movie right before she promises to spend the night in a haunted house. Nothing bad will happen if you stay in an old home that only a bunch of superstitious townsfolk think is haunted, right? The one where a bunch of people fifty years ago disappeared under mysterious circumstances, their bodies never found, right?!?! RIGHT?!?!?!?!

At any rate, I couldn’t back out after I invited my sister and told everyone I was going. I have a goth reputation to uphold, after all. Like any traumatic experience, much of it is now a blur. What I can tell you about that harrowing event was that a certain amount of (liquid) courage was required to enter that haunted house. But enter we did, into the swirling fog, where all manner of things lurked in the shadows.

There were screams (mine). Dark maze-like corridors to navigate. Panic (also mine). Ghosts and ghouls and all sorts of monsters to run from. Believe me when I tell you it was not for the faint of heart!

I learned something about myself that night: I AM STILL A SCAREDY CAT.

But I also can’t help myself. I will always be drawn to the gothic, the unknown, and terrifying things that go bump in the night. And that’s okay. Healthy, even.

After we made it through the terrifying haunted house and ran to the safety of the well-lit street, my sister and I both felt strangely cleansed. Okay, our hearts were still racing, and we were out of breath from dodging monsters and running through torture chambers. But we were also relaxed.

There was the rush of having faced something we’d both built up in our heads (hence the liquid courage), doing the thing that scared us, and coming out the other side (mostly) intact.

We survived!

It was truly a terrible delight to be frightened out of our wits and then leave it all at the door of the haunted house. There, in the moonlight and crisp air, was a fresh start and a clear mind.

That feeling is what makes me venture deeper into the world of horror, even as I am, and always will be, a scaredy cat. There’s something incredibly empowering about looking at the things that scare you—especially the ones that have followed you since childhood—and laying them to rest. They may never stop scaring you, but at least you know, when old ghosts stir in the night, you can face them and be the better for bringing them into the light.

That’s the power of horror stories: They shock us! They terrify us! They make us face our fears so we can put things into perspective, heal what needs to be healed, and exorcise the demons and spirits that have tried to hold us captive.

That’s the beauty of spooky season. It makes us eager to look at the things we normally confine to the shadows of our minds the rest of the year. Now, in the cozy warmth of my home, a large pumpkin on the kitchen table waiting to be carved, I feel brave again. Brave enough to consider going through that haunted house again next year.

Maybe.

As a special treat, in honor of spooky season, I’m offering up free copies of Hungry Business and Weep, Woman, Weep through Dia de Los Muertos. May they bring you chills, thrills, and delightful exorcisms!

Image of a dark and stormy night with a haunted house in the foreground.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational collection of musings touching on life’s simple pleasures, everyday fantasy, and absolutely delectable recipes that will guarantee to stir the kitchen witch in you.  If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is the everyday, subscribe here.

Want even more inspiration to make your dream life a reality?  Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and  Instagram.  Thanks for following!

Meg Ryan Fall

This post originally appeared in my September 2024 newsletter.

Every time the fall term rolls around, I’m compelled to do several things: start drinking apple cinnamon tea, put up cheesy autumnal decorations, and sharpen a bunch of pencils like I’m Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail, even though the majority of my “school work” is digital now.

My head is filled with fanciful visions of wearing cute autumnal outfits while strolling through The Big City, clutching my newly purchased pumpkin or a pumpkin spice latte (or a tall, skim, caramel macchiato in Kathleen Kelly’s case). In fact, when I’m not going full goth, my seasonal vibes are straight-up Main Character in a Romantic Comedy. (This is true for the rest of the year, too, especially when I’m teaching my class on romantic comedies like I am this term.)

Sure, I love my spooky stuff, and the way the last third of the year just seems made for cozy gothic vibes. But there’s another part of me that absolutely delights in the nostalgic comfort that can only be described as Autumn in (RomCom) New York. I guess it’s because I’ve watched When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail on repeat at a formative age. As a teen and early 20-something, these movies were the height of Adult Sophistication, and Meg Ryan was the aspirational working woman with a strong sense of style and a soft warmth that feels almost radical today when so many narratives about women in mainstream media often treat us as flat characters catering to the male gaze.

So often, we are forced into stereotypes of Uptight Boss Ladies, Manic Pixie Dream Girls, or Sexy Vixens. Meg Ryan, instead, portrayed characters who were both competent professionals and women searching for love, confident in who they were and yet only human in their insecurities, strong in their opinions and soft in their care for others. Her characters were, in other words, real women who contained multitudes while also looking autumnally stylish AF. What’s not to love?

As it turns out, I’m not alone in this. I was today years old when I discovered there is such a thing as Meg Ryan Fall. It revolves around her iconic roles in When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle. These movies capture the seasonal beauty of The Big City, the ephemeral joy of season’s change, and all the cozy things that come with it, like walking through Central Park on an autumn day or attending a neighborhood fall festival, and maybe meeting your soul mate on the Empire State Building or in a rival bookshop. These movies are also very much stories about loving the city you live in, from the neighborhood coffee shop to your local grocery store and, yes, your favorite bookstore. 

Although there are valid critiques of Meg Ryan Fall as just being another iteration of White (Christian) Girl Autumn or a way for the internet to further commodify a nostalgia-tinted past, I think the real appeal of Meg Ryan Fall is that it connects us to the “valuable, but small” parts of our lives, all the “nothings” that actually mean something, to poorly quote a few lines from You’ve Got Mail. In other words, the dailiness of life—from checking your inbox to grabbing a cup of coffee—becomes magical when we realize that these tasks and routines that we often take for granted actually bring meaning to our lives. It’s those chance encounters with an old acquaintance that suddenly leads to something more—or the hope for something more that ushers in gentle change.

Just as spooky stories connect us to the hidden parts of ourselves and the universe, Meg Ryan Fall reminds us that life can be soft and romantic. This sentiment feels especially true after the pandemic as I’ve struggled to release the fight-or-flight mode I was in for most of that time and to embrace the fact that life can be cozy and gentle if we let it. 

There is nothing I missed more during the pandemic than these mundane “nothings” that I absolutely took for granted before going into lockdown. The weekly trips to the grocery store. Chatting with people as we stand in line at the coffee shop. Bumping into friends at a local restaurant or making new ones. Reading a book on a sidewalk cafe on a sunny autumn afternoon. People watching at the park. These moments connect us to something deeper than ourselves and that never-ending to-do list. They are a reminder of our basic humanity and interconnectedness. 

Most of these films were made before the internet really took off and before iPhones were commonplace. You’ve Got Mail signals the dawn of a new technological era in which our communication landscape fundamentally changes. Even then, however, the film has a way of making the World Wide Web feel quaint with its story of secret digital penpals. The Internet is just another cozy neighborhood space where chance encounters can lead to the kind of love that is simply meant to be. Meg Ryan Fall asks—no BEGS—us to put our phones away, slow down, and really be part of our neighborhood. To plug into our lives more than we plug into social media. To be present and aware of the ephemeral joy of the season’s change. To connect, not through dial-up, but through being at home in our small corners of the world.

Yes, the idea of modeling your fall vibes after Meg Ryan’s iconic romantic comedy roles is cheesy. That’s kind of the point. After the trauma and stress of the pandemic and figuring out how to live in a post-pandemic world, Meg Ryan Fall invites us to be a little silly, a little frivolous, and a little playful. Play, I’m learning, is our way of signaling to the universe that we are ready for some unexpected magic. So, this fall, I’m going all in as I relish the autumnal glory of my city and the cozy camaraderie of my local neighborhood haunts.

If you’re looking for a little more enchantment in your autumn, too, I’d encourage you to find a moment or two in your day that makes you feel like Kathleen Kelly walking through her neighborhood on a sunny fall day while the Cranberries croon “Dreams” overhead. Or don your most dapper hat and sweater combo and take a city stroll to leaf peep. See what lighthearted magic comes from it!

Image of Meg Ryan as Kathleen Kelly from You’ve Got Mail walking down a path surrounded by autumnal trees.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational collection of musings touching on life’s simple pleasures, everyday fantasy, and absolutely delectable recipes that will guarantee to stir the kitchen witch in you.  If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is the everyday, subscribe here.

Want even more inspiration to make your dream life a reality?  Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and  Instagram.  Thanks for following!