I’ve written a lot about scarecrows recently. My son has been infatuated with them ever since we visited an organic apple orchard a few months back. I didn’t think much of it at the time. This was around the time when our son started telling stories. He was remembering things and retelling the tales. He fell down one day and proceeded to tell us the story of how “I fell down!” over and over and over again. After we visited the apple orchard our son began to tell us all about how he “saw scarecrows” at the orchard. It entered his repertoire of stories to tell and, because it was associated with falling down, I didn’t think much of it. I was wrong, however, as scarecrows had become a part of his life for some reason.
First it was the doll his Mom bought him on their trip to Ohio. Then it was the frequent trips to the apple orchard and the endless stories. Then family and friends started bringing up scarecrows in conversation because they knew he liked them. I knew that it was time to act… and that Halloween was the holiday for action. We set out with the goal to become scarecrows for Halloween. We bought a single yard of burlap, used some scissors and safety pins, and successfully created our scarecrow outfits. Mom finished the costume with some well placed make-up (that was the moment our son really saw a transformation). By the end of the night he was running around the room happily saying “I’m a scarecrow!” Good night? Yeah. One of the best so far, actually. As our son becomes more intelligent and aware of social interactions and other things we take for granted, he is able to see the joy in pretending (even momentarily) that he is someone (or something) else. It’s something I’ve done for a decade in theatre, and I’m glad to see he values it too.