I am sitting at my
keyboard waiting for inspiration for this blog piece. If I turn my head to look
out the window, I see the bare branches of the black walnut tree, as well as
the branches of the young oak, still hanging onto its brown leaves until spring
arrives. The sun is shining, which in itself is a rare occasion this month,
worthy of celebration. Hmm. Celebration. Cake sounds good. But I’m wandering
again.
I have an America CD playing. Yes, I am too
old-school for streaming music. Maybe I will stream it in the near future, if
someone shows me how to do it, lol. In the meantime, my CD collection gets a
good workout.
So this morning, my
office is filled with light, music, pictures of people I love, and me? I am
busy thinking about ghosts. Are they currently flitting through my house?
Pretty sure they are –still getting assorted bumps, knocks, and footsteps. I am
busy looking up ghostly things on the Internet. Found a great article I can’t
wait to share. It will be Monday’s FB Page topic. And I am also busy dreaming
up what kinds of specters and wraiths Cassie and Michael will run into, this
time around.
Am I obsessed, or
what?
When I was a kid,
walking my mile to the library (not in bare feet, and not uphill both ways) for
my pile of books, my mind was always filled with the hope of finding books
about the supernatural. Ghosts were the best, but I settled for monsters,
discovered cryptozoology (happy day!), and became a big fan of mysteries
because sometimes, just sometimes, they contained a smidgen of the
supernatural. Or at least a hint of it. As I grew older, I began to realize
that if I wanted more ghost stories, I’d have to write the dang things myself.
Decades and decades later, here I am. Still looking for the haunted.
The best –and funniest-
thing is that publishing works about ghosts, about haunted places, about
specters, and apparitions, and those pesky things that make all manner of
racket in the house when you know you’re home alone, has brought me into
contact with a variety of people who share the same interest. So now I have a
community of folks who send me links and articles, pictures and personal
stories, all having to do with the weirder aspects of life experience, and I
LOVE IT. It’s like the kid walking that mile to the library suddenly found a
group of people walking beside her, all willing to talk about the same stuff. I
can’t begin to explain how very, very splendid this all is, and how much I enjoy
it. And am grateful for it. I was willing to talk about ghosts back when I was
younger, but always with a bit of caution, and always ready to let people think
I was joking, if I saw they weren’t believers like I was. And I was okay with
that; they didn’t live in my house!
Now, though, as an
adult, it’s funny to find how many people are open to the idea that there is
more to this reality than meets the eye: how many people are open to the idea
that there is an area of grey where the boundaries of everyday life blur and
something beyond normal experience waits for us to discover it. I don’t think
of myself as being unrealistic. I
just think that my reality has expanded.
So for all of you who
read my daily FB posts, who plow through my blog, actually read my books and
stories, and bother to send me your thoughts, your tales, and your
encouragement, Thank You. If it weren’t for you all, I’d still be sitting here
writing books for myself, and while that can be fun, it’s lonely and a little
lifeless. After all, I don’t believe a story can really breathe and come to
life if others don’t read and acknowledge its presence in the world. Thank you
for taking the Pinocchios or the Velveteen Rabbits that my stories are, and
making them real.
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