Pick-Perfect

October 16, 2025

The quiet chorus of tradition plays on loop, never exactly the same way twice.

Each October, we take a trip to the patch. It might be a different farm, taller kids, higher-tech phone cameras, but it’s the same general theme. It starts in planning: What will we do with them this year? The answers set the tempo. Carve them? Paint them? Roast the seeds? Make pies? The anticipation becomes a prelude to the day itself. Once there, everyone eases up and down the rows, judging by some internal tuning fork no one else can hear. Step, ponder, tilt, reject, repeat... until one just feels right.

And then there's the cart: We have to let the young people pull it, even though it's heavy and awkward and the pumpkins wobble and roll and threaten to tumble. Our patience is crucial, here, because it's impossible to learn the special physics of Halloween in a hurry; we have to remind ourselves that the trial and error is all part of the rhythm of the season, and of parenting, too.

And once we've carved or baked or painted and cleaned up the mess together, it's time for the ta-da! moment: Everyone stands back to admire and sing the praises of the results and the people who made it happen. The melodies from this year's outing blend with last year’s, and the one before that. We scroll through our phones, squinting at Octobers past, and note the similarities and differences... and the richness of the song playing in our head becomes ever rounder and deeper, more vibrant with each passing year.

It's not the particular pumpkin, or the particular plan. Just the resonance of moments repeated with love, October after October, imperfectly perfect.

—Debra Ross, publisher
   

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