October begins and it is my favorite month of the year as well as my birth month. Autumn is my favorite season and although it’s barely begun, I welcome it.
I was born scant days before Halloween with a name one short syllable shy of my grandmother’s dead daughter’s name as another kinswoman departed this life. I like to think Aunt Lottie and I high fived on the way in and out or at least said hello. My parents took me home to an old brick Victorian house where generations of doctors had once lived and practiced. In that house, the paranormal was the normal because odd things happened often. I also inherited a few psychic gifts from my grandmothers, a great-grandmother, and one great-grandfather who happened to be the seventh son of a seventh son. Some of my true strange experiences have appeared in Fate magazine. So, it’s no wonder that I’ve always been attracted to things both supernatural and paranormal with curious wonder.
With my birthday so close to All Hallows Eve, many of my early birthday cakes were decorated for the holiday with orange and black frosting, black cats, and even witches. Autumn is my favorite season and as an adult I always burn a traditional fire on October 31. Catholic girl that I am as well I go to church the next morning for All Saints too and often for All Souls on November 2.
With some Irish heritage and fey ways, I’ve experienced things that some may not believe but perhaps some will. I’ll share one that has photographic evidence – believe it or not.
I lived deep in the rural Ozarks when I first got married, in the woods, and in the hollow down below our home an old derelict farmhouse remained. My imagination always gets fired up by old home places so I talked my husband into trekking through the woods, literally over hills and through the brambles to see it. I brought along my camera, shot a lot of pictures and we went in but not far because it looked dangerous. The staircase that led to the upper floor was rotted away. I shot the pictures with my Canon camera using 35 mm film, in the age before digital and phone cameras.
When I got the pictures developed, I looked at them and then looked again. I saw people in the upstairs windows. In the side window, a woman of about thirty leans to peer out through the glass. In one of the front windows, I could see an old woman with a big apron tied about her waist pointing one finger in the direction I stood taking the pictures. There was another picture of an old man, very distinct.
I showed them to my husband and he saw them too. I still have the pictures and everyone I’ve ever shown them to shivers. The people look very real but no one human could have been upstairs because there was no way left to reach it. Since then, I’ve shot a few other pictures of old houses that have images in the windows too but none are as clear as these.
That old house, changed by imagination, has become the setting for more than one of my stories or novels.
That’s one story of many I have.
As Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) once said, I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
.
I was born scant days before Halloween with a name one short syllable shy of my grandmother’s dead daughter’s name as another kinswoman departed this life. I like to think Aunt Lottie and I high fived on the way in and out or at least said hello. My parents took me home to an old brick Victorian house where generations of doctors had once lived and practiced. In that house, the paranormal was the normal because odd things happened often. I also inherited a few psychic gifts from my grandmothers, a great-grandmother, and one great-grandfather who happened to be the seventh son of a seventh son. Some of my true strange experiences have appeared in Fate magazine. So, it’s no wonder that I’ve always been attracted to things both supernatural and paranormal with curious wonder.
With my birthday so close to All Hallows Eve, many of my early birthday cakes were decorated for the holiday with orange and black frosting, black cats, and even witches. Autumn is my favorite season and as an adult I always burn a traditional fire on October 31. Catholic girl that I am as well I go to church the next morning for All Saints too and often for All Souls on November 2.
With some Irish heritage and fey ways, I’ve experienced things that some may not believe but perhaps some will. I’ll share one that has photographic evidence – believe it or not.
I lived deep in the rural Ozarks when I first got married, in the woods, and in the hollow down below our home an old derelict farmhouse remained. My imagination always gets fired up by old home places so I talked my husband into trekking through the woods, literally over hills and through the brambles to see it. I brought along my camera, shot a lot of pictures and we went in but not far because it looked dangerous. The staircase that led to the upper floor was rotted away. I shot the pictures with my Canon camera using 35 mm film, in the age before digital and phone cameras.
When I got the pictures developed, I looked at them and then looked again. I saw people in the upstairs windows. In the side window, a woman of about thirty leans to peer out through the glass. In one of the front windows, I could see an old woman with a big apron tied about her waist pointing one finger in the direction I stood taking the pictures. There was another picture of an old man, very distinct.
I showed them to my husband and he saw them too. I still have the pictures and everyone I’ve ever shown them to shivers. The people look very real but no one human could have been upstairs because there was no way left to reach it. Since then, I’ve shot a few other pictures of old houses that have images in the windows too but none are as clear as these.
That old house, changed by imagination, has become the setting for more than one of my stories or novels.
That’s one story of many I have.
As Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) once said, I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
.
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