An evening walk in the neighbourhood

 Savoring Simple Daily pleasures

My daily constitutional over the weekend took me down familiar streets that had been transformed for Halloween. The evening sun slanted through the trees, gilding everything in gold, while the air carried that faint edge of spring warmth — the kind that makes you forget the calendar for a moment.

Cobwebs straggled across hedgerows, the kind spun not by spiders but by enthusiastic small hands. Foam tombstones leaned slightly on front lawns, and paper pumpkins swung gently from mailboxes. Jack-o’-lanterns grinned from porches, their carved faces already softening a little in the sun. A frisson of excitement shimmered in the air, mixed with the giggles and shrieks of youngsters testing out their costumes ahead of the night.

Families gathered on street corners, older siblings urging the little ones to go ahead — go on, knock on the door, it’s okay! Familiar children ran up to me, proudly holding out handfuls of brightly wrapped loot, eyes wide with sugar and triumph. The smallest of them seemed less concerned with the haul and more entranced by the experience — the thrill of being out past their usual bedtime, dressed in fairy wings or floppy bunny ears, fluttering along beside the bigger, braver ghouls and superheroes.

I stopped to chat with a few neighbours, all of us basking in the mellow warmth of the late afternoon sun. Laughter carried easily between houses, and for a moment, I was tugged backward in time — to years of sticky hands tucked into mine, pumpkin-shaped buckets bobbing expectantly at our sides. Gosh, they grow so fast.

The next evening, I took the same route, but the scene had changed again. Where there had been cobwebs and candy, there was now a twilight market — another kind of magic altogether. The air was alive with music and chatter, the smell of sausages and tacos drifting lazily down the street.

Friends and neighbours strolled between stalls of crafts and garden plants, faces painted, gelatos melting faster than they could be eaten. Children raced in wide circles around their parents, ketchup stains glowing like badges of happiness. Couples sat cross-legged on the grass, swaying to the beat of a local band, while dogs trotted contentedly at their owners’ sides, tails wagging to the rhythm of the evening.

I wandered slowly through it all, taking it in — the laughter, the smells, the easy mingling of lives that brushed up against one another every day. Two very different nights, yet both full of the same thing: community, connection, that simple, grounding joy of belonging somewhere.

It felt, for a moment, like stepping into an all-American dream — Hope River, Gilmore Girls, Desperate Housewives perhaps — though without the glamour, and with a distinctive Kiwi twist.

As the sun dipped and the fairy lights began to glow, I felt deeply, quietly grateful — to be part of this place, this time, this gentle rhythm of ordinary wonder.