“Ghosts seem harder to please than we are; it is as though they haunted for haunting’s sake — much as we relive, brood, and smolder over our pasts.”
- Elizabeth Bowen.
The natives here at Tara have become a little more restless these last few days. There are footfalls in the halls at night that seem too substantial to have come from one of the cats. I've heard faint music at 2 a.m. wafting up the stairwell. Two nights ago in the wee small hours I could hear the faintest woman's voice, with what sounded a little like a German accent. There's been movement in the corner of my eye as I pass the mirrors Peg has taken to scattering along the corners of the upstairs hallway to lend a little light to that gloomy space.
Why the flurry of activity? Peg's filled the house with antiques, the provenance of which we only partly know. Amo Houghton's stuff would all seem to have good karma, given his lifetime of good works and kindnesses people still remember around here. Who knows about the rest? Maybe some tragedy or unfinished business dragged a former owner along with that rosewood dresser or hand carved buffet.
Or it's the Olcotts, still roaming the house they built going on 173 years ago now. I commented to P the other day that the house is a study in contrasts--relatively small, with modest flooring and finishes throughout, but with a grand Greek revival facade that projects stateliness and power. The builder, you'll recall, was the son of one of the richest men in the state at the time, whose house now is the Governor's Mansion in Albany. Young Thomas didn't stay here very long--just a few years. His first wife died here. What hopes and disappointments must have soaked into the plaster?
The Olcott theory carries at least some circumstantial support after an unusually busy night of otherworldly noises two or three evenings ago. P and I had built a fire in our fireplace after supper, and curled up to drink a little cab and watch a movie before turning in early, as is our habit.
As you can see, P has already filled it with the detritus from taking down the Christmas tree, getting ready for the next big blaze.
That night there was a lot of rumbling around downstairs, some probably attributable to the cats but a bit much even for them.
A few hours later when we crawled out of bed and I turned on the lamp in the living room as part of the morning routine, I made a jarring discovery. Whoever started the fire the night before (and I truly don't recall--we sort of take turns) had left the butane fire starter resting on top of the fireplace. That surface gets extremely hot, as evidenced by what was left of the lighter.
I am surprised and relieved that the fuel in the handle did not explode into flames after we went to bed, which likely would have burned the whole house down given that it's basically a two century old pile of kindling.
So, my theory this morning is that all that racket came from Thomas, and maybe Amo and a whole host of spirits who didn't want to see their beloved house, or books, or keepsakes, burn to ash. Maybe they were worried about us, as well. Whatever the motivation, they did their best to wake us up and pique our curiosity enough to go downstairs and discover the hazard. I chalk up their lack of success to the cabernet.
Having not burned up, I find myself alive and well, or well enough, this chilly morning. The weather guessers say rain is coming, but it's a rare, brilliant winter day out there right now, yesterday's snow already melted.
Trying to apply a little of what I picked up this morning in the New York Times, reading the transcript of Ezra Klein's interview with a psychiatry prof at Brown University, Jud Brewer, who's written on how anxiety becomes a habit we can unlearn.
I am a ball of stress, all the time, and have been most of my life. It's something to work on if I want to remain on this side of the sod much longer, and this at least provides a methodology other than drinking or telling myself to quit worrying, neither of which seem particularly effective.
Mom's moving into assisted living today, a tragic milestone in a tragic season of her life. I should be there, but I'm not. I'll carve out time to call her.
And our bank is jerking us around. We've been customers for over three decades now, but customer service in this country is simply a thing of the past, as much as that anachronistic "Good morning, Captain Dickey" I hear on the line when I call to complain about whatever comprises the bank screw-up of the week.
But I can't do much about that now, so I'll settle for applying some of Dr. Brewer's modalities to keep from having a stroke before P gets home, and try to get a little work done. And so it goes.
Commentaires