Ghosts in the Family

Though I don't celebrate much these days besides handing out candy, I still think there's lots to like about Halloween. 

For one thing, I love the way scary movies start to show up on October 1 and play through the end of the month. I like the idea of dressing up and trick or treating. (We left a tray of wrapped candies out in this pandemic year but no one came, and I wasn't really expecting them).

I'm also one of those people who loves costume parties and misses the horror movies when most seem to disappear after the holiday. I don't like the violent movies though - I'm much more a fan of ghost stories.

I've been thinking about it this week and decided the real ghost stories in our lives are actually family stories. Who are the ghosts I talk to sometimes, or wish I could see again?

I'll start with my father and mom. Ghost two would be my mother's sister, Aunt Ida, who was glamorous and had her own very strong sense of style. She was also full of life and I loved being around her. 

Another ghost would be my first babysitter - who I knew most of my life - Louisa Kennedy. I think Louisa was the first person to believe in me as a writer. She was a former dancer in the corps de ballet at the Metropolitan Opera, and though I didn't know how to articulate it, she was the first person to model what it meant to be an artist for me.

Louisa had long dark braids she wound around her head. She loved dancing and encouraged me to do it, as well as to sing. She laughed at my jokes and oohed and aahed about my drawings. You can probably tell I was crazy about her and would love to see her again.

Ghosts just don't seem to show up unless they're in movies, though. At least that's how it has been for me. But that doesn't mean they don't haunt us.

The ghost I seem to be most haunted by is my friend Susan, who died due to complications from ovarian cancer in 2015. Susan was brilliant and a spectacular dramaturge. She also edited my book The Beat on Ruby's Street while working at Scholastic Books as a copy editor. Last but in no way least, she was a compelling actor with a thrilling, low, expressive voice.

One of my favorite movies is Truly, Madly, Deeply about a woman whose deceased boyfriend returns to live with her. At first it is wonderful and then they stop getting along. I can't remember the exact quote (so don't quote me) :D - but one of her friends says something like "The dead are all around us!" at some point in the film.

I think that is true, whether they show themselves to us or not.  And on days when I'm really sad,  I can hear Susan telling me to buck up and throwing a quote or two at me.

Here's the one I found today, from the novelist and journalist Chuck Palahniuk (who wrote Fight Club among other books):

"We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

I like this one too from Henry David Thoreau:

"Live your life, do your work, then take your hat."

Yeah. I like that.

 

 Ghost photo: Kevin Dooley

 

Secret Room

Trying to navigate Blogger's new format today, so I hope you'll bear with me. To give you a little progress report in the midst of our lovely zombie plague, I finally broke down and called REI and wonder of wonders, they were having a sale on kayaks that were either in stock or could be ordered fairly soon. 

One was completely in our budget and the other was a little more - but we decided to bite the bullet and should have both by the middle of August.So at least there may be a little freedom in my future. Or at least, the promise of it.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering today about secret rooms, as it seems we have one. Of all the houses in the world, I would never suspect our sturdy mid-century home of harboring a secret hideaway. I mainly think of secret rooms and passages in homes from the turn of the century and before--like Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. I remember reading that book on my (first) honeymoon and wishing I'd find a house like that. 

In fact, I did find a house like that during my (second) marriage. I miss that house, though it had it's ups and downs. This house is terrific, but it doesn't have anywhere near the charm and beauty our old 1914 house had. And what on earth is it doing with a secret room?

We only found the room because when we were house hunting, there was a gap between the concrete staircase built by the owners and the house itself. My husband looked inside and said there was a room in there, mostly cinder blocks and concrete, and definitely not finished. 

There were no stairs leading anywhere and no secret passages. At this point, the gap was filled in, but we know it's behind a wall with a mural in our basement. 

Why DID people have secret passages? What were they hoping to do in them, escape? Why would you build a house if you wanted to escape from it? Have a secret love affair with the maid or butler? 

Wouldn't you need more room for that, or is that where the passage would lead to? Of course there's always the ghost room, where a ghost is hanging out waiting... for what? Maybe to scare visitors to death so he or she would have company.

What are WE going to do with our secret room? I don't know. I'm not sure I want to leave it alone in the dark though. I would very much like to know what's IN there--even if it's nothing but cobwebs and dust balls. I don't like the idea of there being secrets I don't know about in the walls of my house.

If I do meet a ghost in there I'm going to tell him in no uncertain terms the house is too practical for a spirit and he (she?) needs to find a better one. Do you think that will work?

I'll leave you to ponder that while I tell you my one and only triumph this week. Remember I was trying to find a word to rhyme with Connecticut? I already found etiquette, but now I have a new one.

Predicate.

Made me smile, and I needed one this week.

Maybe I should write a song.

Secret room photo: Steven Miller

Electric Ghosts

This is probably not a ghost story, though sometimes it feels like one. I go back and forth quite a bit about ghosts; thinking if there ARE any, then everything else we think of as super or supra natural has to be here, too. That means God and angels and maybe (possibly) demons?

Actually, I think demons are in a class by themselves. They confuse me, for one thing, because the original Biblical passages about Satan involve a sort of celestial being who served as a kind of prosecuting attorney (see the story of Job). 

Somehow, this angel-prosecutor evolved into the Lord of Darkness or Hell, but as a playwright, I see a lot of holes in that script, though it makes for great movies and TV.

Demons aside, could there be spirits (ghosts) among us without angels, God and other celestials? I would think not, because if you have one sort, isn't it silly to say that's the only kind? 

As I said, I scuttle between these doors almost daily and haven't settled on the answer. But my house may be trying to help me decide.

When we bought our home last summer, we knew there had been one owner, more or less. Our new neighbors said a man had built the house in 1957 but hadn't been able to stay, and sold it to a couple named Einar and Solveig. Einar died some years ago and Solveig sold the house at age 97.

The couple had two daughters, who must have played in the little playhouse in the backyard. Inside, their 1970s wallpaper greeted us in their bedroom and was also in the kitchen and downstairs. A Southern style mural was downstairs too--and we are changing all of these.

The past seems to intersect with the present not only through the decor and walls of the house; it seems to reside in the electricity, too.

I know, that sounds weird.

When we moved here, the electrical wiring was a mess and needed to be redone. While it seems "mostly" safe and finished, there are some odd things that happen, and while they CAN be explained scientifically (I think), they still feel somewhat ghostly--and maybe that's just about me.

What I'm referring to is that every once in a while, for no outward reason (like overuse), half the lights and electricity cut out. This happens at all hours and times of the day - in the dark, light, whatever. One time it was particularly scary because my husband was in the bedroom and I was watching The Haunting of Hill House.

When everything went dark, I was terrified--especially as my friend Annie told me that ghosts tend to manifest in technology. (She wrote several books about her life in a haunted house, so she ought to know.) After that incident, I've put a flashlight next to me on the couch, because ghost or no ghost, you don't want to be alone in the dark after watching a really scary horror movie.

What is happening when the lights go out? One breaker (in a raft of breakers in the basement) flips to the other side and the lights go out. My electrician refers to this using unintelligible electrician language that I can't remember.

What is left for me to do about it? I go downstairs and flip the breaker back, and then the lights go on. Last night, I did that and by the time I got upstairs and sat down at the dining room table, the breaker went back again. My husband went downstairs at that point and flipped the breaker again, going back and forth once or twice for good measure.

We seem to be all right now. Then again, who knows? Why is that one breaker flipping, at least once a month? And why have the electricians grounded our bathroom outlet, only to have shocks still occuring?

Last but not least, why do electricians cost so much?

Not last, in fact, because I'm still wondering about Einar. Did he die in the house? I'm not sure. Is he mad at us? Playing tricks? I haven't been particularly nice about his electrical work, which he did himself, though I'm sure he was a wonderful baker.

Or maybe I'm just playwriting, and there really is an explanation for the breakers flipping all the time?

That's probably true. But our hall closet has Solveig's name printed on a little white nametag sticker. I plan to leave it there as long as it doesn't disintegrate, just to let Einar know his family is welcome here. Because, you know. Just in case.

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