A Disowned Part of Myself

I been thinkin' a lot lately (ha, yeah right, when aren't I thinking a lot?)....I did this writing exercise with Beth that I found in a book, which was basically to probe your memories and write down instances you remember according to different prompts. They were pretty generic--i.e. remember your first romantic attraction, a childhood memory that involves water, something that humiliated you, something that made you laugh out loud, a time you felt threatened....the usual, the things where you hopefully would have memories significant enough to hang on to.

This was great, because it took us literally an hour to do, even though there were only twelve or so prompts. Because each time we'd start giggling to ourselves as we wrote down our memories, and then we'd have to tell each other the stories. Great getting to you know stuff, a lot like that game, Loaded Questions. But for some reason my experiences in the Albion Nature Center came up....and I hadn't thought about them in years....those times freshman and sophomore years that I went down there (I can't recall ever going down there at any other time, because clearly I didn't want to).

And then today someone had brought up something that verged on the possibly clairvoyant, or at least occultish, that they were experiencing, and I remember the Nature Center again. I remember actually writing a tragically long poem, or series of poems, about it. That place moved me and opened my mind up to parts of me that I really didn't know what to do with.

The thing is, I believe in stuff like that. Spooky, paranormal, whatever you want to call it--not like wicca or anything, just I think that it's all inside of us in one form or another. I think there's a lot to each of us that never even gets tapped. People think I'm weird even when I say I believe in ghosts. So usually I don't share that I believe in, or at least am not willing to discount, a lot more than that.

Ryan and I had a great talk about this on the way home from my brother's house (by the way, my nephew has christened me "Tee"--I believe it's short for "auntie"). About the possibility of an afterlife, what different religions have to say, and what we think. Part of it was spurred by the fact he just finished reading The Lovely Bones which is an amazing take on the subject of the afterlife. I just think there's more out there than what we're taught to think along the traditional Judeo-Christian lines....I'd like to think it's more like in the book....that heaven is really something you create yourself. So there would be such a thing as hell, if you thought that was what you deserved and that's what you built up around yourself. But there's no God condemning you to it--it's your choice. Just as on earth, in life. And also like in life, no one else is really affected by it but you. It's a hell of your own design and has a population of one.

So anyway, I was thinking about the Nature Center, and all the stuff I experienced there. Not all of it bad, in fairness, but a lot of it strange and new. And there were a lot of people at that time who were very eager to tell me what was what, and I think that's what turned me off....they seemed too self-assured and self-important to actually be knowledgable....like they just liked to talk a good line....and I was afraid to end up like them. I didn't want to be in their crowd. So I ran away from it all.

For instance, a lot of people in my life now don't know that I read palms. I do! (that'll do for my confession of the week) I started learning in a book because I was intrigued, but then I threw the book aside in favor of intuition. And let me tell you, I was good at it.

See, it even feels weird admitting it here, like someone's going to think I'm a freak. Whatever. I just feel like remembering it. And like I said, I think there's a lot to all of us that we disown, that we're afraid to explore, or that we never get reminded that we have. I remember standing in that open field in the NC, and feeling wave upon wave of....whatever you want to call it....energy, emotion, something....washing over me. Powerful and scary. And the time when I went to sit on the big white rock way in the back, and felt so peaceful that I fell asleep, and when I woke up, a deer had come out of the woods and was only about 30-40 feet away from me.

I guess I feel like I want to reconcile these experiences with my otherwise mundane life, to find a way that they can coexist. It's funny when you believe in a lot of things and it doesn't always seem like they would go together, even if they're not in direct opposition.

Anyway, I'm battling a cold and so I'd better get to bed before I think myself into a fever.