I
join a chorus of voices, of people who tell their stories in a public format of
encounters with the paranormal. I hope I am not, by my actions, derivative. Though
I have certainly been inspired by these others, I speak only of my own
experiences. I fear I may have the appearance of jumping onto a certain kind of
bandwagon. If it seems that I’m doing so, or if maybe I am doing so, then perhaps my motives are not so different from anyone
else’s: the availability of the format, a timeliness to the subject, a desire
to add my voice to the conversation… and moreover, a species of compulsion, in
my case quiet but insistent.
The
basis for these postings is the content of a journal that I kept, as of now,
about one year ago, in the spring and summer of 2011. I tried then to put my
memories down, as clearly as I could, of a few major and several minor events –
basically all that I could remember – of a certain character or quality. Some
of these are things that have haunted me for most of my life, and I believe
that they have shaped me in some important way. I can’t draw many conclusions
yet about how they’ve shaped me,
whether helpful or not so, or what the true measure of that may be; just that
these intrusions have come to reside at the center of who I consider myself to
be, and how I relate to the world. In that sense, they are important, though I
don’t know that they are always real.
I’ve
been hesitant to make these encounters public for any number of reasons. Hardly
the least of which is that, compared to many stories, they just don’t stack up
for dramatic content. I’ve never, to my direct knowledge, been abducted by
anything or anyone unworldly (though someone quite human did try to abduct me
as a child – which is a different story). Rather, the phenomenon remains at a
certain distance, showing through, revealing itself by teasing, beguiling
turns, through rents or clefts in the fabric of the normal (hence, I guess, the
para-) and is, by this ontology, very
highly erotic – not only in its actions, but in my reactions. I hunger for
these experiences, though I doubt them. I’ve not had nearly enough. I want
more, and I don’t trust myself in the face of my desire. Yet none of this seems
to influence how or when it chooses
to show itself.
Yet
as distant as these appearances are, they are also deep inside of me, in the
stuff of who I am, most especially in the voice of imagination. Nothing could
get closer than that. Being basically a creative person, this is the source of
what I am usually trying to express, the aspect that moves in oblique angles to
those elements of a given fact or situation presenting itself as the real. I
wouldn’t dare to deny what is true, nor would I ever be satisfied with what is
merely so. This tendency may have no source beyond myself, but then I have
never known exactly what that is either.
