Ghosts

Strange days in the building where I work.

First, there was that hammering and sawing just beyond the little door to nowhere.
Then, the wooden chair that sits to the left just inside my office
apparently moved itself...
I left the office, locking it and walking away for 20 minutes or so.
Upon my return, I could not get into my office because that chair
had moved over so that about 1/2 of it was somewhat wedged in front of the door.
Inside the office.
Dunno how the hell that could happen, but it gave me the willies.
And finally, last night, 3 of my clients and I were sitting outside in our "back yard".
We all heard someone walking around just inside the building,
but when we went in - no one was there.
We double-checked all 3 floors and found nothing.
Down in the basement, where it is super-spooky (circa 1885),
there were a few areas that were just overwhelmingly...weird.
There was one area where the air seemed peculiarly 'high-altitude' -
and uncomfortable to breathe. Near by, there was a section of wall
that was oddly faded and all scratched up in a vaguely circular pattern.
When I walked by that wall, I had such an overpowering, total feeling of despair
that I almost burst into tears. My heart was pounding, I was nauseated
and all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.
I tried to appear calm (I was readying to leave for the night and
didn't want to abandon my herd in a state of panic) - but I felt, for a moment,
as though I was breathing another's breath, or being forcibly resuscitated
while still breathing on my own.
My face must have blanched, because the 3 women with me shouted WHAT? WHAT!
swiveling their heads around while running toward the stairs in a mad panic.
The melancholy I felt in that basement was so singular and vast
I cannot even begin to explain it.
I just knowI was disturbed by it all evening,
and the feeling lingers today.
Strange days are also upon the people living in the building.
There is much about the lives of the women I work with
that I sense, but never really see.
They struggle daily, they are haunted by their pasts -
and I, in turn, am haunted by them.
Behind the carefully arranged faces they show to the world,
each harbors a spectral child, whose face sometimes drifts forward
to gaze at out at me with such wistful longing
I feel my heart might stop.
Oh,the weight of history.
The shape of regret.

Ghosts.

Update

In our last episode, Brown Shoes turned 50...
and while the vast nothingness recently available
on this blog might make you think otherwise -
I did not curl up and die.
Much has happened since I was last able to sit down and write,
but now that I'm here, attempting to do so,
I feel incapable...
afflicted by a curious combination of - oh hell, you do the math:
guilt + perfectionism x resistance + desire - ability = ...
when I add it all up, I'm left with a peculiar paralysis
that leaves me sitting at my keyboard, feeling like a moron.
So, while it may be a cop-out (heh heh),
I'm going to get a little Robert Stackian here and do a simple update:

Trip to Utah in late August - fabulous.
Highlights: windmill fighting with my sister's beagle,
eating the best mole negro on the planet,
and T and I laughing ourselves sick over boxes of hideous family pictures.

New fridge: check. (and this one works!)
New leather couch and chair: ordered in May, arrived in late September.
They are chocolatey and buttery and a little bit intimidating.
Feels odd, as if someone else with taste and cash moved into the house
while we weren't looking.

The Inferno: I have been solo staff member since the first week of September
(my co-worker abruptly left her position),and while I would usually argue
this statement vociferously - one of me is NOT enough.
Highlights: new baby born late August. Another resident in false labor (twice!).
5279 pieces of paperwork - one set of hands.
The flu.
Somehow pissing off the maintainence guy, which has resulted in him launching
a bizarre vendeta against me. Most recent volleys: writing his name on things in my office that belong to me, removing a poster from the wall because he thinks it's ugly, adding his own passive-aggressive quotes to our soberiety-only quote board.
The flu redux.
The ghost: making creepy hacking and sawing noises directly outside the weird door
that goes nowhere (OLD building, crazy remodels over the years left us with a door
that opens onto a 20 foot drop-off).
The rats.
The tattoo people: they apparently imported several bales of supertough pot and
have been hosting smoke-a-thons in an old van that sits directly ouside our back door.
The smell is UNbelieveable.
The other neighbors: Squatters have moved into a vacant building across the alley from us.
They have become best friends with both the tattoo people and all the regulars from
Methder Rogers place.
Things are going to hell in a fertilzer-lined handbasket. In a hurry.
The vibe is changing from annoying and loud to truly frightening.
Pray for peace.

Home: My 19 daughter has moved back.
D. has begun construction of an art studio for me off the back of the house.
My son spent a week here working on it.
Dysfunction junction, but pretty damn cool.

Me?
Overwhelmed.
Overworked.
Exhausted but strangely happy a good bit of the time.
And, as of September 8th - 3 years sober.

Missing all of you, and hoping you are all well and content.

Off to work - again.


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