Little Bits and Part One

I’ve covered the stories I usually tell whenever someone asks if I believe in ghosts or why do I believe in ghosts or if they straight out ask me to tell them one of my ghost experiences. If you missed them, please scroll down because what I’m about to post kind of needs a little set up.

I haven’t covered some of the smaller things… Like the showerhead that came on and off as soon as my husband and I entered our hotel room in Windsor, UK. Or the time I thought I felt the spirit of a young girl who’d committed suicide in the dorm building across from where I was living, so I asked her for a sign and the hallway light came on despite the fact that I was the only one in my dorm at the time. Whether that was really her or not, I don’t know, but the light came on when I’d asked for a sign. ‘Someone’ was there.

I’ve also left out the year or so when our gang of 5 turtles would randomly start paddling like they’re about to be fed, but there’s no one in front of the aquarium. They were all looking at the same place and expecting food, but the spot was empty. What were they looking at? Or more specifically, who? They don’t dance when you put a chair or other object in front of the tank. They only dance for people. Both my husband and I witnessed that together as well as alone. Makes me wonder how the turtles could see the ghost, but we couldn’t. And where did that person go? The turtles haven’t ‘danced for no one’ for about five years now.

I also just recently remembered an early morning when I was in fourth grade. We had a spa outside at home. I’d folded the heavy cover back half way like usual. There was no one around but me. Since it was about 4:30AM, I fell asleep lounging there in the nice warm water like I did most mornings before school.

Then I heard, “Wake up, wake up, wake up!” in my grandfather’s voice, startling me. I opened my eyes in enough time to catch the heavy spa lid about an inch from my nose. The wind hand blown the cover over and would’ve caused serious damage to my face and neck had it landed. Talk about a scary close call. There wasn’t even time to scream.

Now, in the next two posts, I’m going to write about someone I have told very few people about…like maybe three people total. And I don’t think I’ve told them everything. I do, however, tell just about anybody what happened at the end of this tale. The rest is somewhat personal, but mostly it’s hard for a skeptic to believe. I have not done any research and I wouldn’t even know where to start. I also have no evidence. So, if you don’t believe in ghosts or that I’m sensitive to them and want to keep reading anyway, pretend it’s just a story and hopefully it will entertain you.

In August of 1997, I was a lighting technician assigned to do the lighting and run the light board for a symposium. It was five days of easy money as far as I was concerned. This was to take place in a large sort of banquet room with a high ceiling. There were two storage rooms on one end. We set up several risers to be a stage. There were lighting positions up on a ledge where we had some lights clamped to a few pipe-and-base setups.

Obviously, this wasn’t a major theatrical production. For the most part, they were going to use the house lights, but when they showed slides or movies, they needed different lighting in order to see what was on the screen.

I hadn’t worked in the space, but I’d been in there once before. A big room without windows. Nothing special. During the load-in, all I was in charge of was lighting. There was a podium set up, so I figured I’d get up onto the catwalks and get it lit first.

I walked into the stage left storage room and my breath caught. Hard. I was practically blinded with a sort of darkness even though the light was on.

What the hell was that? I stopped. Good golly, I felt uncomfortable, but I had a job to do.

Oh well. Whatever. Get to the ladder and get up it so I don’t have to stay in there.

I climbed up two rungs at a time and got out onto the catwalk–which was literally a ledge that went all the way around the room, without guardrails or anything. I did what I needed to do with the lights and since that took me around to the other side of the room, I went down the opposite ladder–the one in the other storage room.

Okay. I climbed down to the floor. That room did not have the same effect on my sixth sense as the other creepy room, but I felt as though there was something on the other side of wall it shared with the other room…something very bad or at least very powerful. Hmmm… Kind of strange, but whatever. I took the mental note and continued working.

The day wore on and I got the lights ready before helping with some of the chairs and staging. My co-workers went into the creepy storage room and stood there talking and joking amongst themselves. I went in and thought I was going to die of creepy-wacky-weird-o-matic-ness, so I backed out to the doorway and made excuses not to actually come into the room.

I look back now and laugh my ass off. I’d never done that before and haven’t done it since!

My co-workers thought nothing of it because I’m a hard worker. If there were some nasty (fake) handprints on the door, it wasn’t strange to see me wiping down the door or even picking up (fake) dirt or lint from the floor. Yes, I made up stuff to do which would keep me from going into that room unless I absolutely had to.

Every single time I went into that freakin’ room, I got bombarded with either black imagery with sharp edges or a sort of deep wheezing, growling breath and of course an overwhelming desire to not be in that room. I did ask one of my co-workers if that room felt strange and he said no. I suppose it was just me, but at least the energy was confined to only that room.

Why was this such a big deal? Why don’t I talk about it? Well, honestly, it’s not the thing-in-the-room part of the story I don’t talk about because it was so personal, etc. There’s more to the story…in a different room…with ‘someone’ else…who essentially solidified many of my beliefs in the afterlife and how much of it works. There are exceptions to every rule, though. Nothing is certain.

And someone else in the position I was in might see things much, much differently than I did.

Like the essay I wrote in 11th grade about Thoreau and Emerson… I wanted to work on one of the many stories I wrote after school, but I had to write the stupid school essay, so I combined them. I used the characters from my story and put them in the essay. My teacher thought it was the most brilliant essay ever turned in to him. A+

He saw something in my writing that I did not intentionally put there. He interpreted that essay differently than I did.

To me, much of paranormal investigation is subjective like that. In a philosophy class that I never raised my hand during, when it came to the existence of ghosts, I just couldn’t sit on my hand any longer and shy little me found myself in a debate with a guy who didn’t believe in ghosts.

I asked him, “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

“No. Of course not.”

“With all due respect, sir, that’s probably why you don’t believe in them.” A hush fell over the class. “I have seen a ghost and if you were in the same situation, experiencing the same thing I experienced, you’d likely believe they exist, too.”

He didn’t appreciate that and said things which equated to me cavorting with Satan. I was discouraged (from ever speaking out in class ever again), but not vanquished. Others in the class seemed shocked that I had actually spoken out and began sharing unexplained occurrences in their lives and it was so nice to hear that I wasn’t alone. I thought the one guy was going to start crying or something. He was utterly mortified. Can you imagine what he would’ve done if I’d owned up to being sensitive, too?!?!

This conversation happened about a month after the experience I’ll post next time. Not everyone is going to believe it and that’s totally fine with me. Non-believers can treat it as entertainment.

I know in my heart what I experienced and honestly, others may have interpreted it differently, but the triggers were there for me to experience it the way I did and if I’m not true to myself, who can I be true to?

So, next time I’ll share the week I spent one-on-one with a ghost.

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