I have a miniature orange tree that we bought on our honeymoon. This year the tree will be 43 years old. It's not just a small orange tree. Its oranges are the size of a small superball and bitter as anything. The tree is now taller than me, and I'm five foot four or thereabouts.
It was too big for the windowsill in the winter. So it spent winter in the basement under a light. In summer it was outside. When the sons were old enough to hang out downstairs the tree seemed to do better as if it liked the companionship.
The boys would gather and play video games and one boy, in particular would be poked. When he'd look, he'd discover that it was the tree poking him. So the tree would be shifted back, they'd start to play again and the kid would get poked again. Eventually the boys had to shift positions because the tree wouldn't behave.
Fast forward.. the sons each have a crowded room int he basement with no room for the orange tree. Upstairs it came located near the front window, where I hoped it would get enough sun.
Fast forward some more and.... yep... house fire.
It was cold. It was February and the firemen had chain saws and what not. Walls were cut into, the front window broken. There was water and vile yellow smoke like something from Hell. The basement was a loss. Contents stank of wet and that vile, yellow smoke.
As things were winding up, I noticed that the tree was hanging out of the window. No. That's not quite correct. It looked as if it were reaching outside of the window trying to breathe. The tree was not close enough to the window so that the branches would have come out when the glass was broken. It's pot was upright and not tilted so maybe the trunk bent somehow. No. It was upright when the fireman carried it out of the house. (They wouldn't let us take anything but my purse and the tree and those the fireman carried out.
I know that trees don't move. That they don't reach out to purposely poke someone or to lean out for fresh air but the orange tree did. Maybe the house Angels hang out in it. I don't know. I only know what happened as strange as it seems.
Marmalade anyone?
Monday, May 9, 2016
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Growing up
I suppose that, during childhood the unusual became usual because nothing more than the crab stands out. We moved to New Jersey and when my parents moved back to Baltimore, I stayed behind. Imagine, at 18 I asked for permission to stay. Certainly something that wouldn't happen today. Arrested development or simply fear of my mother? Whatever it was I moved in with a friend's family and stuff started happening again.
First off there were my car lights. This was back in the early 70's and to turn on my car's lights I had to pull a lever out and, to turn them off, push that lever in. I had to park on a piece of unused land across the street from the house because there were already too many cars in the household. This piece was in clear view of the mechanics at the end of the street who called regularly to tell me I had left my lights on. First time, ok maybe I didn't turn them off. Second time, I was certain I had but maybe.... By the fifth, sixth and seventh, I knew I had. I'd push in that lever so the knob was flush and would come out to find the lights on, lever pulled out. I always locked the car so I knew it wasn't some kind of prank. I finally got fed up and sat in the car, yet again to turn out the lights and said, aloud that I had enough and it had to stop. Then it did.
Christmas came and I was helping to decorate the tree. The little sister picked up a blue ball on a hook. Apparently it wasn't on the hook correctly because it fell. I watched it wondering it if would smash into dust on the tile floor when it simply disappeared. One minute there, one minute not. I said nothing but little sister kept asking where her ball went. That she had a blue ball and now it was gone. I still said nothing, only handed her a new ornament to hang.
Next came the letter. A letter appeared on the kitchen table one day. Part of a letter, I should say, one page talking about the D'arcy Fisks and how they were coming for a visit. No one in the household had even heard of the D'arcy Fisks and they had been in that house for years. No one admitted to the letter and the next day it was gone.
Things started to ramp up then with noises and sensations and the knowledge that there was something haunting the basement. Eventually I figured something out and managed to put an end to it. My friend and I had made an appointment to see a well known local psychic. The psychic was so popular that appointments had to be made months in advance and the moment we cancelled our appointment, the nonsense stopped. There was, however, something else that occurred after the grandfather who had lived in the home with us all died. I would hear him get up in the middle of the night, shuffle to the bathroom and back again. He never flushed. I guess spirits don't feel the need to flush.
I wonder now why this didn't freak me the hell out but it didn't. I guess I just filed it in my head under weird stuff. I mean, who else would marry a man they met at a funeral? A man who never had weird in his life till he met me. That, however, is a story for another time.
First off there were my car lights. This was back in the early 70's and to turn on my car's lights I had to pull a lever out and, to turn them off, push that lever in. I had to park on a piece of unused land across the street from the house because there were already too many cars in the household. This piece was in clear view of the mechanics at the end of the street who called regularly to tell me I had left my lights on. First time, ok maybe I didn't turn them off. Second time, I was certain I had but maybe.... By the fifth, sixth and seventh, I knew I had. I'd push in that lever so the knob was flush and would come out to find the lights on, lever pulled out. I always locked the car so I knew it wasn't some kind of prank. I finally got fed up and sat in the car, yet again to turn out the lights and said, aloud that I had enough and it had to stop. Then it did.
Christmas came and I was helping to decorate the tree. The little sister picked up a blue ball on a hook. Apparently it wasn't on the hook correctly because it fell. I watched it wondering it if would smash into dust on the tile floor when it simply disappeared. One minute there, one minute not. I said nothing but little sister kept asking where her ball went. That she had a blue ball and now it was gone. I still said nothing, only handed her a new ornament to hang.
Next came the letter. A letter appeared on the kitchen table one day. Part of a letter, I should say, one page talking about the D'arcy Fisks and how they were coming for a visit. No one in the household had even heard of the D'arcy Fisks and they had been in that house for years. No one admitted to the letter and the next day it was gone.
Things started to ramp up then with noises and sensations and the knowledge that there was something haunting the basement. Eventually I figured something out and managed to put an end to it. My friend and I had made an appointment to see a well known local psychic. The psychic was so popular that appointments had to be made months in advance and the moment we cancelled our appointment, the nonsense stopped. There was, however, something else that occurred after the grandfather who had lived in the home with us all died. I would hear him get up in the middle of the night, shuffle to the bathroom and back again. He never flushed. I guess spirits don't feel the need to flush.
I wonder now why this didn't freak me the hell out but it didn't. I guess I just filed it in my head under weird stuff. I mean, who else would marry a man they met at a funeral? A man who never had weird in his life till he met me. That, however, is a story for another time.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Time flies or do flies time?
I joined a paranormal group on Facebook and after reading a number of the posts I have come to the conclusion that my life isn't an Oddz Bodkinz kind of life, rather it is a paranormal kind of life. Funny that I should think that anything with the word normal in it would have anything to do with me.
In fact, my normal is paranormal and I often wonder how the real people live. How do they manage to go through life without knowing someone is going to call and have the phone handy. Or be given a heads up when something awful is about to happen. And, to tell the truth, they are never realy clear about WHAT is going to happen, I just have to wait and see.
Doesn't everyone hear someone call their name? Have their door swing open? Find meaning in repeating numbers? Feel what those around them feel? Talk to animals? Know how they died in a past life (Titanic no less)? Well no wonder people look at me funny.
There has just been SO MUCH in my life that I could write a book. Title it something like.... When the Paranormal is Normal.
So, instead of a book, I will write it here. No one will read it anyway but that's ok. Sometime you just have to sit down and get something out, even if you are the only one to ever read it. I suppose, for me, it would make it seem.... oh I don't know... true, even though I know it's true. Whatever the reason, here goes.
The very first experience I remember is the giant crab that crawled out of my bedroom wall.
It was summer in Baltimore without air conditioning. We used to go watch boring movies at the local library branch simply because the room was air conditioned. No air conditioning in the home but a big bad assed fan that was installed in my bedroom window. The fan blew out so it sucked all the hot air from the house through my bedroom and out into the night. To take advantage of the air flow, I slept with my head at the foot of my bed. Never being a good sleeper I often woke in the middle of the night and laid there like a lump waiting for sleep to return. It was such a night when that crab, claws clicking appeared out of the wall at the head of the bed. It scared the crap out of me and I went screaming into my parents room.
I was sent back to bed with a terse "It was a dream". Bullshit. I was old enough to know a dream, to know pretend and what I saw was not pretend. It was a crab coming out of my wall.
Of course, I never said anything about it again. I said nothing about the other odd stuff that would happen. The stiff, starched, for display only dolls on the top of my book case that would come alive at night and dance or just move about. Or my grandmother riding past in the passenger seat of a cae when she had already been dead for 6 months or so. Or the way I simply knew things.
Needless to say, I learned to keep my mouth shut. Why bother telling anyone when they wouldn't believe you and give you 'that look'. You know which look I mean. The look that tells you they don't believe that they are hearing what they are hearing and then they back away from you very very slowly as if your insanity is contagious. I grew to hate that look and yet I wanted to share what was going on. It made me feel special. I was never special. I always couldn't do or be something good enough but I could sense things and see things and know things that others couldn't or maybe they wouldn't.
Now I don't care about that look. I'll proclaim to the world, or my small section of it, the oddities that pop up. the unexplained things that make perfect sense to me. It's my way of saying to the world that I am different and I don't care. In fact, I like being odd. It sure beats the heck out of normal.
In fact, my normal is paranormal and I often wonder how the real people live. How do they manage to go through life without knowing someone is going to call and have the phone handy. Or be given a heads up when something awful is about to happen. And, to tell the truth, they are never realy clear about WHAT is going to happen, I just have to wait and see.
Doesn't everyone hear someone call their name? Have their door swing open? Find meaning in repeating numbers? Feel what those around them feel? Talk to animals? Know how they died in a past life (Titanic no less)? Well no wonder people look at me funny.
There has just been SO MUCH in my life that I could write a book. Title it something like.... When the Paranormal is Normal.
So, instead of a book, I will write it here. No one will read it anyway but that's ok. Sometime you just have to sit down and get something out, even if you are the only one to ever read it. I suppose, for me, it would make it seem.... oh I don't know... true, even though I know it's true. Whatever the reason, here goes.
The very first experience I remember is the giant crab that crawled out of my bedroom wall.
It was summer in Baltimore without air conditioning. We used to go watch boring movies at the local library branch simply because the room was air conditioned. No air conditioning in the home but a big bad assed fan that was installed in my bedroom window. The fan blew out so it sucked all the hot air from the house through my bedroom and out into the night. To take advantage of the air flow, I slept with my head at the foot of my bed. Never being a good sleeper I often woke in the middle of the night and laid there like a lump waiting for sleep to return. It was such a night when that crab, claws clicking appeared out of the wall at the head of the bed. It scared the crap out of me and I went screaming into my parents room.
I was sent back to bed with a terse "It was a dream". Bullshit. I was old enough to know a dream, to know pretend and what I saw was not pretend. It was a crab coming out of my wall.
Of course, I never said anything about it again. I said nothing about the other odd stuff that would happen. The stiff, starched, for display only dolls on the top of my book case that would come alive at night and dance or just move about. Or my grandmother riding past in the passenger seat of a cae when she had already been dead for 6 months or so. Or the way I simply knew things.
Needless to say, I learned to keep my mouth shut. Why bother telling anyone when they wouldn't believe you and give you 'that look'. You know which look I mean. The look that tells you they don't believe that they are hearing what they are hearing and then they back away from you very very slowly as if your insanity is contagious. I grew to hate that look and yet I wanted to share what was going on. It made me feel special. I was never special. I always couldn't do or be something good enough but I could sense things and see things and know things that others couldn't or maybe they wouldn't.
Now I don't care about that look. I'll proclaim to the world, or my small section of it, the oddities that pop up. the unexplained things that make perfect sense to me. It's my way of saying to the world that I am different and I don't care. In fact, I like being odd. It sure beats the heck out of normal.
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