White-haired and Quiet

A few minutes ago, my little niece came running past me and said, "I saw a ghost! I saw a ghost!"  She had just come from upstairs and then from the living room.

I picked her up:

"What did you see? I didn't hear you." Just to be sure.
"A ghost. I saw a ghost."
"Where did you see it?"
"In the living room."
"Was the ghost a girl or a boy?'
"A boy."
"A little boy or a daddy?"
"A daddy."
"Was his hair light or dark?"
"It was white!"
"Did he speak to you?"
"No."
"What was he doing?"
"Standing there, looking."
"Could you take me to where he was?"

We go to the living room.

"There!" she said, pointing to the coffee table area where Mimi was standing.
"Was he smiling?"
"No."
"Well, there's no need to be afraid.  He was just visiting. Just saying, 'Hi.'"

Downstairs . . .

A couple of weeks ago, I expected a guest of ours to appear at the top of the stairs in the middle of the night.  After all, somebody climbed the steps and stopped at the newly-installed fish tank on the first landing.  That's been going on every night since.

Also, Mimi has played with someone called "Lucy" -- younger, maybe two -- on the porch. 

"Do you play with her often?"

"No."

"Oh."

"She usually just watches me."

And the other night, I was afraid that our youngest, visible houseguest might be wandering around downstairs in the middle of the night.  It sounded like a little child in the kitchen -- the indiscernible words, the little shuffling of feet -- so I went down to investigate, noting that the cat was on our bed.

Nobody was awake. 

Lucy is with us for now.

Hello again

Oh, boy. I did take an extended break, didn't I?

I didn't mean to do it. I think sometimes I'm overwhelmed with responsibilities and I end up trying to simplify everything to the detriment of my interests, viz. writing this blog.

I took a weekend trip to Lily Dale (an upstate New York Spiritualist community) recently -- even though I am not a member of the Spiritualist Church -- and it ended up being a retreat: napping, shopping, thinking, just . . . being. That really helped.

I want to extend a big thank you to everyone who has written me with questions and requests for guidance. I'll do my best.

I also want to thank everyone who voted in the poll concerning whether or not Scully should re-view the movie 'Shutter Island' with me. So far, he hasn't. But, then, he hasn't seen the results yet, either.

Finally, thank you for just hanging in there as I periodically break from the blog to collect myself.

The Girls

Recently, Gigi and I have continued a really interesting dialogue.

"Do ghosts exist?"

"You have to decide that for yourself."

"But it would be so much easier if you would just tell me!"

Aint that the truth! But I have a strong commitment to ensuring that my children are independent thinkers and I don't want them to be spoon-fed beliefs.

"But YOU believe in ghosts."

"Yes, I do."

The Ghosts

As for the activity in the house, there has been some. To wit, the dining room again. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the living room when Gigi just kind of quietly slipped into the room and uneasily perched on the side of the sofa.

"What's the matter?"

"Um, I just heard someone speaking. In the dining room."

"Oh, you mean outside? You heard someone from inside the house?"

"No, it was inside. Right beside my ear."

"What did they say?"

"I couldn't make it out."

"Are you OK?"

"I think I just had a ghost experience."

The dining room

Mimi still won't go into the dining room unless someone is with her.  And this weekend, during my reading in the dining room,  my client bundled up the entire time, sometimes warming her cheeks.  At least you couldn't see our breath!  I felt oddly apologetic though I don't have any control over such things; after all, the ambient temperature was 20.5 degrees celsius -- pleasantly warm!

As my client spoke, I kept seeing the spirit of an elderly man around her.  He was kind of distant from her but seemed congenial.  I told her about him and that he was somehow connected to her friend. The ghost's name was Tom.  I'd seen him before around her but hadn't been able to give her a name.  I knew he'd been in an airplane accident and I had told her so during a previous appointment.

"That's my friend's father!" 

She paused and added, "I forgot to mention last time: My friend's father died in an airline crash . . . "

Still, I don't know who is in the dining room.

Today

My workout at the gym was good, a strong performance. I sometimes see so clearly the connection between the strength of my intuition and my overall wellbeing. A healthy mind needs a healthy body -- or some such thing.

What was on my mind this day -- a major remodelling project in our home is about to start in the very early spring. While we're adding about 300 square feet, we're not destroying anything or altering the original structure in anyway. We're simply taking an enclosed, screened area and making it a year-round part of our home. We worked very closely with our contractors to ensure that the appearance is maintained in every respect. I wonder if our co-residents will get a bit restless.

It has been a crazy week

Though there have been signs that a ghost is around, nobody has approached me in any way. So, maybe it's not about me.

Anyway, Mimi still won't go into the dining room without me because of the ghost with a tennis racket.  I'm not going to force her.  I think Gigi would really like to be able to see this sporty ghost.  I think I would, too. 

I have a bookswap (for moms) meeting to go to at the beginning of next week and I'm trying to decide if I should take some of my duplicate works of ghost fiction and non-fiction.  I keep meaning to sell them; some are quite valuable.  But the space on my shelves is becoming prime real estate these days as I have no more room anymore.   The basement is already filled to capacity with boxes of books.  Last year, we donated about 12 boxes of books to someone who takes the money she earns by selling them and donates it to Haiti.  The year before, we sold a few thousand.  So, the bookswap idea works very well for me: I'm not taking up any more space and I get to read something new.

The moms who usually attend are mostly interested in "chicklit" but I've picked up some fantastic literature on occasion.  I can't wait.  It's funny, though, because only the person who hosts the event actually knows what I do for a living.  So, I might raise a few eyebrows if I bring along my extra copy of Ghosts on 87th Lane or something!

Overheard

I lay in bed resting before supper while Scully prepared the meal and the girls played in the bedroom beside mine.

The girls were chatting:

Gigi: I think there is a spirit in here.  (She always says she doesn't believe in them.)

Mimi: Gigi, there's no such thing as ghosts! (She actually sees them all the time.)

Gigi: Really, I just feel like there is one here with us.

Mimi: Oh.

I asked Gigi what she meant and who she thought it might be.  She shrugged: "I don't know.  I just feel like it's here."

Then, not much later, at the table, Gigi asked: "Mum, are ghosts real?"

"Well, some people believe they are and some don't."

"No, Mum! I need you to tell me if they are real or not."

"I'm sorry, I can't do that. You're going to have to decide for yourself."

She growled at me.  She knows I believe in ghosts but I don't want to tell her what to believe; I want to promote independence of thought.

Damn!

I was really in the mood to watch a scary movie tonight but I won't usually do it without Scully -- and he decided to be responsible and do some work instead.

You know, back in the days of my youth, I had a rather dramatic ghost attached to me and to my family (because teenagers just aren't dramatic enough) and this is how it made its first appearance:

One night, my parents had decided finally that, at the age of 12 or so, I was old enough to be home alone and they availed themselves of the opportunity to have a free babysitter for my sister.

I, being home alone, decided that it would be a good idea to watch a movie on television that night. Clearly, I had no experience in this regard because I chose to watch, of all things, The Shining!

Well, as I sat tautly on the edge of my seat with my eyes glued to the TV, the metal garbage can in the kitchen became a drum for unseen hands and the kitchen fan suddenly started running without the benefit of the switch being turned on. I was shocked. I was terrified. But I believe I continued to watch the movie . . .

Anyway, I don't think memories of this early event have anything to do with my unwillingness to watch frightening movies alone. Strangely, the more comfortable I've become with the paranormal in my everyday life, the scarier the movies have seemed!

As soon as it gets quiet . . .

Tonight, we were watching, of all things, The Ghostwhisperer and, in the middle of the show, Scully and I decided to take a break for snacks, etc. So, I paused the show and, being the first back to the living room, waited very patiently.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash. I bolted up the stairs and over to the kids' room as Scully asked, "WHAT was that?"

They were both soundly asleep. I checked our bedroom, the hallway, etc. -- all over -- but there was no evidence of a crash. As I turned to go back downstairs, I looked over at my office: There didn't seem to be anything out of place. As I peeked around the door, I saw my laptop computer lying on the floor.

It had "fallen" from my desk. Either it jumped off or somebody helped it along the desktop to the floor.

O, would that I were omniscient. I didn't see or sense a ghost but, of course, that doesn't mean that a ghost isn't around. Hmmm. I wonder what's up . . .

Dining room

Yesterday, as I prepared for my date with Scully, Mimi came into the kitchen:

"I'm afraid of the dining room."

"The dining room? Why?"  There was no need for her to go into the dining room because dinner was done.

"Because of the ghost."

"Oh, what ghost? What does the ghost look like?"

"He has a tennis racket."

A sceptic's contribution

As I mentioned recently, Scully has grown so much throughout the years as far as the paranormal is concerned.

I think he has developed a sense of awe, too. Imagine what a sentence such as "I've just seen a ghost" has to go through in the machinations of a scientist's sceptical mind only to have it emerge completely intact again. He often just shakes his head when, for example, we see ghosts on the basement stairs and in the backyard, particularly right in front of the carriage house.

But he has always been very supportive, even back in the days when he wouldn't entertain the possibility that ghosts exist.

He speaks of me and what I do with his friends and colleagues.

He has accompanied me, if only at first for safety reasons, on investigations big and small. He's driven me to the locations and has tirelessly held many video cameras; he has also spared me for entire weekends as I travelled with others to remote locations for a documentary.

And when media attention has been at its most intense, he has been content to be Mr. Ghostiegurl.

While still a sceptic, his intelligence dictates that an unexplained experience does not necessarily have to be understood through the present scientific paradigm. That's pretty cool.

Cold

I woke up last night because I needed another blanket -- it's THAT cold. It's unsually cold even for Canada and these here parts.

But it's still not the kind of cold that I can feel when there's a ghost around. That particular kind of cold seems to be coming from my own body, freezing everything it touches around me. That's really difficult to articulate, actually.

As very young adults, my brother and I used to chat on the phone just about every night. He was dealing with an issue that he couldn't discuss with anyone: Our paternal grandmother would visit him quite regularly. He would be asleep in the dark and then a lamp would turn itself on and wake him up; he'd see my grandmother sitting on his bed or standing at the end of it.

(That wasn't really a problem for him; I think he was having trouble dealing with the fact that she had told him their visits would soon stop. But he wanted to know more about where she was, what she was doing and what she was able to do in her, uh, state.)

One night, he told me that she would come visit me and asked if I was ready because she would be there that night. As we were talking on the phone, my body grew colder and I could barely stand. I could hardly hold the phone.

I remember standing in the upstairs hallway and looking at my parents' room -- they were asleep, stretched out trying to stay cool in a heat wave. The outdoor temperature was in the 90s but I was shivering and feeling weak. My brother asked if she was there and I had to say, "Yeh, she's here."

I had been in the presence of ghosts many times before but this was the first -- and not the last -- time that I had been in this way affected.

Gigi learns about ghosts . . . Again

Because she's becoming more curious about what I do and why -- being almost seven -- I decided to try something I've never done: I allowed Gigi to watch Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal with me.

Regular readers will know that Gigi used to see ghosts until about the age of five. Starting around the summer last year, she began to be more curious about what I do. Until then, she had just referred to my readings as my "appointments" or my "ladies".

In the past few months, many times, I tried to have a conversation with her only to get stuck on the concept of intuition. (I worked on that by asking her, "What FEELs true?" in this or that conversation.)

Today was the day that I said, "Would you like to watch this show with me?"

It was fascinating to watch as she began to understand what I meant by "ghost", that some people believe while others do not and, through the show's participants, she also grasped that it wasn't something that she could talk about with everyone. Throuhout the show, this is what she said:

"I don't have a ghost. Do you?"

"I don't want to turn into a ghost. I don't want to scare people and make them run away."

"When I was little, I felt a chill and I think I heard a 'meow'. I think it was a cat ghost." In 2006, I posted about Gigi and a ghost cat.

Wow! Again with the cat ghosts. Scully -- the bewildered scientist -- has spoken increasingly of our resident ghostly pets.

Most interestingly, when she learned that she didn't have to be afraid of ghosts and that this was a decision she could make on her own, she provided commentary to the story of a girl who was very afraid, she said,

"I think she should just get used to it."

Ta-da! There. It wasn't easy but it wasn't as difficult as I feared. But what about my vocation?

Well, she learned that I believe in ghosts, that part of what I do involves interracting with ghosts in some way.
She learned, too, that there are elements of the stories we tell ourselves culturally about ghosts (folklore) that make stories exciting but which aren't necessarily true. One child during the episode was about to see what information (s)he could sense about a ghost, (s)he said: "How come we always have to wait until night to do this?" I looked at Gigi and told her that neither darkness nor night hours were not necessary in order to sense or communicate with ghosts.
I think that's enough for now.

Tonight's Houseguest

Tonight, as we four sat at the supper table in the kitchen, we heard the bells of the cat's ball in the dining room.

"Uh, what was THAT?" Scully asked.

"The cat," I shrugged.

"Uh, the cat's right HERE."

There she was, curled up on the bench beside him. Since we have no other animals, I got up and walked to the door of the dining room and peered inside. Nothing.

"I've been seeing a lot of cat ghosts recently. A lot," said Scully.

Our two cats died about four years ago and we continue to see them around. But Scully . . . He's come a LONG way since we first met. (Hence, the nickname.)

Who's That?

One day this month, I heard my 27-month-old waking up from a nap:

"Who's that? Who's that?" She called out. She had never used that phrase before.

I ran upstairs. "Who are you talking about, honey?"

"That man." She pointed to the floor beside her bed.

There was nobody there. I told her so.

"The man was there."

"Did the man talk to you?"

She nodded.

"What did he say?"

"It's my house."

"He told you it was his house?"

"Yes." My heart pounded. I told her it was our house, our home.

"Did he say anything else?"

"He said 'Thank You'. The books."

"What's his name?"

"Jeff. He gave me my [pacifier]."

My heart jumped. We don't know anyone by that name and it's not a name in the few cartoons that she watches.

She also told me that he often visits her and reads books. I told her he wouldn't be back. Though I didn't see him, I asked 'Jeff' not to return.

Eyeliner, a highlight of my teen years . . .

I always thought it hadn't fazed me in the least.

At twelve, my family became unwitting hosts to what would generally be described as a poltergeist though, myself, I'm reluctant to use such a label. Although I did fit the conventional model for such experiences in the popular school of thought, I don't actually believe that a storm of hormone and emotion typical of puberty was responsible.

There was definitely energy 'focussed' on me but not only upon me. At different times, we were subjected to very terrifying experiences and, yet, I was strangely detached, more an observer who occasionally became annoyed than a victim.

I got a rush of adrenaline whenever my mother described the latest event to which she had been witness but that was it. I didn't want to run under my covers and hide.

When objects of mine were destroyed -- while I and the rest of my family were away -- it definitely niggled. I'd had a wall covered with my favourite posters culled painstakingly from magazines over a period of time. One day, returning from school, I discovered that every single eyebrow of every person in each poster (dozens) had been coloured over with black eyeliner. The posters were ruined! And my stick of eyeliner was lying on my dresser. And I wanted to blame somebody, anybody, even my stepfather who had been at work! But there was no one to blame. No one that I could see, anyway.

Again, I was shocked, my heart pumping as my eyes scanned one end of the wall to the other, but I wasn't truly afraid during this episode or during others (and there were many, many more both before and after.)

I find it interesting that I wasn't afraid.

My children and their 'friends'

At bedtime, my almost-six-year-old announces:

"At night, the ghosts come and give me Poe (an Ugly Dragon toy)."

"They what? How do you know?"

"They give me Poe. Every morning, I wake up and I have Poe in my bed." But she doesn't fall asleep with the stuffed animal and neither Scully nor myself ever gives her the toy before at bedtime.

But the heart-stopper? My just-turned-two-year-old, about a half-hour later as I'm lying beside her so she'll fall asleep, says:

"Ghost, Mummy."

"Where?"

"There." She points above her.

"Sad," she says using the sign for sad. "Misses me."

"Is it a lady or a man?"

"A man."

"What's his name?"

I couldn't understand her response. My heartrate still has not returned to normal.

O, my!

I've neglected this blog for a long time. It isn't that I haven't experienced anything of the (para)normal; it's that spare time is sparse.

Anyway, to fill you in, as recently as last night the house was astir.

Scully and I were sitting on the sofa watching a movie and I gasped:

"I just saw a ghost." It had taken me by surprise.

"Oh, I felt a presence behind me." He admitted.

"Yes, it walked behind us and into the hallway." It had seemed to be heading into the kitchen.

Although the image was indistinct, I got the impression of a slight, elderly woman who was hunched over a bit.

Then, this morning, I was at the gym waiting for my spinning class to begin. I was upstairs with one other person, a clerk, who was arranging the bicycles.

"Hey," I said. "That door was closed. I know it was."

Neither of us had been anyway near the bathroom nor had we left the spinning room and yet the door of the bathroom was now wide open.

The clerk smiled and looked away quickly but didn't say anything. She looked as if she wanted to say something but couldn't. Sometimes, people are afraid to mention ghosts because they don't know if the other person believes; at other times, people are constrained by rules/regulations as an employee of a company. Whatever the reason for her silence, I could tell she knew something.

She isn't afraid

At the beginning of summer, we moved the girls' playroom to the screened-in front porch. The other day, I got Scully to put batteries in the mini keyboard/all-in-one musical instrument. For days on end, I'd been hearing faint classical music but couldn't tell where it was coming from.

Then, Scully pointed out that it was the keyboard on the porch going off due to some kind of "short". I tried to accept that but it didn't feel right. My little daughter, almost 17 months old now, says 'hi' to people and only to people. She'd been saying 'hi' every once in a while throughout the house for the past day or so. Strange, but nothing of great importance.

It got to the point that I couldn't take the classical music anymore playing at all times of the day and night, so I removed the batteries yesterday and then went inside to get a Freezie for the baby.

She grabbed the Freezie, walked straight over to the porch, walked out and said 'hi' in the direction of the keyboards. Then, she held her Freezie up proudly to show someone in the same area.

I told Scully who admitted it was a bit "freaky". The poor guy. Living with three sensitive females must be hard.
Whoever it is, it's her ghost because I get only the faintest impressions.

It reminds me of Gigi who, at 18 months, used to run over to the potting shed in the backyard looking for "Ollie".

What boy?!

This evening, I confess that I couldn't wait to get the children to bed. With Scully being away on business, I'm tired. So, after putting Gigi to bed, I was done and reclining (or, refusing to move, if you prefer). The house was mostly silent except for the sound of the fan in the baby's unused nursery.

But I could hear a soft conversation (with laughter) between two children and I just passed it off as the product of sleep deprivation or a simple error in perception.

Later on, I did actually move and went to check on the children. Baby was asleep and Gigi was, too. Just as I was leaving, Gigi woke up and lifted her head, squinting:

"Mum, where did the boy go?"

I couldn't get her to say anything else. Five-year-olds are surprisingly protective of their sleep. At least, mine is. I must make a mental note to ask her tomorrow to please elaborate. These days, however, I often get a sigh as if talking to me is a real chore; well, at least as if I'm not as interesting as Arthur and D.W.