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Jan.3, 2001
It is late evening here. 11:05 to be exact and I will probably post this to the site tomorrow sometime. Someone knocked on the big front doors a few minutes ago. I peeked out and they had gone. I think some neighbor is messing with me perhaps, trying to scare me. I’ve seen my neighbors and there’s no one scarier than me anywhere around here. LOL Really, I don’t know who it was. Since I never have company, it will have to remain one of those little mysteries that never gets answered. That’s fine, adds a bit of spice to my life.
You remember I told you about the few weeks Daniel and I lived in a duplex? I had some very odd experiences there that have not happened since and had never happened before then. I will try to relate them to you as well as I can as I think they are interesting and you may have had some similar happenings in your life.
The building had once been a single level home that had been divided into two dwellings. Built in the 50’s, it really was a nice place and we felt like some kind of royalty living there, what with the bathroom and running water in the sink, and heat and all, but, to continue. We had only lived there a couple days when one night, I was very tired and went to get in bed, Daniel was still at work and it was just little Ernie and me there by ourselves. I pulled the covers back and when I lay down, I noticed that the spot where I was laying was warm, as though someone had just gotten out of the bed. There was a dip, or declivity in the mattress as well which I chalked up to the age of the mattress but I had a terrible feeling of a “presence” in the room, and became quite restless and just got up and forgot about going to bed then.
Later that night, after Daniel came home and we went on to bed, I had horrid nightmares. I remember in the dream thinking, “I am asleep, I must wake up.” and in the dream I woke up and I was dieing. It was a terrible feeling, as though something was being forced upon me against my will. I thought again that I was still asleep and in my dream, I grabbed Daniel and screamed at him, “Wake me up! Wake me up! I screamed over and over, and when I finally did wake up, Daniel had me by the shoulders shaking me and said I had been screaming at him to wake me up.
I could not sleep in either of the two bedrooms for several days and would sleep in the kitchen floor by the refrigerator because the sound of the motor running made me think I was back at the mill, listening to the endless rushing of the creek. Finally, Daniel convinced me to sleep back in our room and all went well for several nights. Then the most peculiar thing happened. Daniel was on the computer late one evening and I went on to bed. I usually sleep on my back and that night I had my hands crossed over my chest and was beginning to doze off when I knew something was not quite right and I started awake to see my hands up in the air as though I were reaching for something. I thought I must surely have been dreaming and pulled the covers of the bed up to my chin and lay still waiting for sleep to come and take me. This time when it happened, I was wide-awake. My hands began to feel strange. Not like when a hand or foot goes numb, not like that, but strange and tingly. I began to feel them lift up, pushing against the covers. I could not stop them from reaching up like that. I shook my head and turned myself on my side to make it stop. It wasn’t frightening really, just strange. Finally, I had to put both hands between my knees and sleep on my side to get any rest. This peculiar hand lifting happened several nights in a row.
I dreamed of my mother one night, she died in 1991, and she was telling me to “Go back”. I was unsure at first what she meant but now know what she was talking about.
All the events ceased when we moved back to the mill.
Jan.4, 2001
A dark and lonely day today. It has been so very cold and I just put the last kerosene in the heater. It should get us through the night I think. This morning the ice along the sides of the creek was so pretty. I always look out back when I wake up to see if any snow has fallen in the night. This morning there were shelves of ice reaching out from the banks and the edges looked like lace, all thin and delicate. The rocks where the water comes down were hanging with icicle beards all heavy and silvery white.
You remember the camouflage neighbor I told you about? They have a big bright spotlight on their carport that shines down on us at night now. LOL I don’t know why I think that is so funny but I do. Anyway, at night it causes the shadow of the mill to be thrown across the creek and up the hill on the other side, you’d think a big full moon was shining all the time. I sometimes think I would like to have a pellet gun or something, and I would shoot it out. I’d have to be crazy to do a thing like that though, wouldn’t I?
I don’t think those neighbors like me very much. They don’t even know me. But that doesn’t stop the average redneck in his never-ending quest to find something to hate usually.
I have a little computer camera I got for $10.oo a while back and if I can find enough money to buy a longer cable, I think I will put the camera over the front door and have it look out over “said” neighbor’s yard and towards their house and observe them as they come and go. This might also help with my security here as I seem to have become the object of some pestering by someone around here.
A few months back for instance, I had a cast stone gargoyle stolen from the porch in broad daylight! I had had Felix the gargoyle for several years and since he weighed about 100 lbs. it never occurred to me that anyone would take him. But take him someone did. I was here and heard a car or truck stop out front and by the time I got to the door, they were gone and so was Felix. I called the cops but they are not trained in gargoyle tracking, so, being as this is the Bible belt, and many people here are steeped in the traditions of extreme conservatism, I decided I would put up a sign out front. So I did. “Thou shalt not steal.” the sign said, cool I thought, maybe whoever stole Felix will see the sign and feel guilty about it and bring him back. About a month later, someone stole the sign.
I still laugh about that one. I hope whoever took my gargoyle will take good care of him and enjoy him and the sign for a long time to come.
It’s about midnight now; Daniel should be home in an hour or so. I have been making plans to start another art project. I make puppets and have been asked to make all the puppets for a production of Midsummer Night’s dream. They want to do it in an oriental style with marionettes. It’s the university nearby, their theatre dept. At any rate, if I can keep from becoming mired down in relentless depression, I will do it. The play won’t be until the end of July so I believe I will have enough time to get all the figures made. It’s still up in the air so to speak and they may decide to do something else altogether.
I made Punch and Judy for them last year. That worked out well I must say and I made really good money from it, which was so badly needed at the time.
On this main floor of the mill, in the front eastern corner, I took a room for my workshop this summer and it is full of art stuff. Too cold to work in there now, but I have puppet heads in the big front window looking out, standing guard, maybe the sight of all those strange little faces peering out has caused the neighbors to wonder about me. I have the window lit up with a string of tiny white lights and so the heads are visible all the time. Kind of creepy looking at night I suppose. Unfortunately not creepy enough to keep away the gargoyle thieves.
Jan5, 2001
I have one sister that I love more than any one in my family. I talk to her sometimes, as we have much history together and care for one another deeply. She called me this morning to tell me she is having to move back to the trailer she used to live in because the man she is with wants her to go. She had been married to him and they got a divorce last year. She had found a nice trailer out on a farm and was living there when they decided she could move back in with him. Loving him terribly, she made the change and gave away much of her stuff, (mostly to Daniel and me) and back with him she went. Well, he told her last week that he never said she could stay there, that it was only temporary and she had to go. It would have been nice if he had told her that before she gave away her things but he didn’t and so now she is moving. She won’t have a phone so I won’t be able to talk to her till things get better for her and she can afford one.
I worry about her so. She has, like all of us, had a hard and sad life. I wish I was in a position to do something to help her and that makes me sad, I don’t have anything to give her, except the things she gave me and she doesn’t want it back. She said she wouldn’t take those things back, she gave them to me and she wants me to have them.
She has much pride.
At any rate, she starts her new job on Monday and will make decent money and can do ok for herself. I just hate it that the man was so cruel to her. She said he already had all her things packed in the back of their horse trailer and had changed the phone to an unlisted number. I don’t want to go into too much about my little sister’s personal life here, but she has had a terrible time with her marriages. Her friendships have proven disastrous as well and this morning we talked a lot about isolating ourselves because evidently we are just not equipped to make good relationship decisions.
We talked a lot about our cousin Och. I don’t know if that is the correct spelling of his name but it sounds the way I spelled it. Many years ago, he left a successful career I think in the auto industry, a wife and children, and moved down home to the mountains and lived out the remainder of his life in a cave. He was quite the local character actually. He lived up in the mountains and trapped and hunted and was found dead one day by his only friend who had come to visit him. Och had been dead for 2 weeks when his remains were discovered.
I wonder sometimes, what it was like for him there, alone in the deep woods, not a sound to be heard but the forest murmuring mystically to itself or the cry of animals sometimes sharp and close by, sometimes soft and distant. What had his approaching death been like? Was he aware, had he been sick? Did it come like moth wings? Softly, diving for his light? It is a mystery to me.
Our father would not take us to visit him, but sometimes he would threaten to leave us there if we misbehaved. LOL
That’s funny now, I have almost become cousin Och without actually meaning to. Or maybe I did. Who’s to say.
So, I wonder if there is not some inborn problem with our family that we cannot connect with or be part of the real world. Seems to be some history of it at any rate. Now, I live here, isolated in this place, and my sister is seeking her own form of isolation perhaps to heal and mend herself. Most of our family is this way. Terrified of the world.
Jan.8,2001
I think the weather has gone mad here. I had a bad night last night, couldn't sleep for dreams claiming me time and time again. When I got up finally at 4:00 a.m. it was raining like crazy. I was up until 8:00 and lay back down and slept till about a quarter to ten and when I got up it was snowing like crazy! LOL One of those pretty snows too, heavy and wet and sticky. every branch, twig or stem of overgrown brown grass was outlined in white. Very pretty indeed. But here in Tennessee, we have white trash snow. It snows just enough to barely cover things, and stops. Then it melts down till there are just nasty little scraps of white here and there and stays that way for ever.
The first year we lived here, we got 18" of snow in one evening. Now that, was a snow storm! The first time I remember ever having thunder and lightening in a snow storm.
Daniel is at work, I have been working on some short stories I hope to put on the site soon, just depends on what I think of them when I get them finished.
Saturday night, Daniel went to band practice and was gone quite late, I had gone to sleep by the time he came home, I think he had a good time.
This entry is mostly trivial stuff, not much going on other that the writing here lately. That and I'm watching "Evil Dead" for the umteenth time. Why? Because I just love that little cabin in the country they go to. LOL I could do wonders with a place like that! I have to go now and turn it down, the woods are attacking the girl and oh hell, someone is banging on the front door again, good bye.
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