Ghosts

I have this idea about ghosts... not ghosts as in kasper the friendly ghosts.. ghosts as in memories and impressions that follow us through our daily activities and affect the way we experience everything. Words are like this too. Peter and I had an interesting conversation the other day about the word bizzar. When I hear that word a song with the lyrics "How bizzar, how bizzar," pops into my head. Peter, on the otherhand things about Pulp Fiction. Wow. My theory about words is that each and every one is a carries with it a shadow, ghost words, feelings, memories, connotations. The difference of one word can change the whole meaning. And literature.. it is litered with ghosts... other books that have inspired ideas and thoughts, discourse between fiction both contemporary and not, private and public. Then when one deals with the idea of haunting as a specific theme in a book.. the idea of shuddering, intangible undertones can be followed from the smallest microcosm to the largest macrocosm.. just as the levels of life begin with a cell and extend to a galexy... or perhaps life begins with a mitochondria and ends with some infinitly large entity.

So many ghosts go unnoticed... we are attracted to a certain kind of man, but have no idea why. We love the colour green, but don't realize until our late teens that the foundation of our delight in this colour is vanity... it brings out the luscious tones of our eyes. We follow specific behaviour patters without realizeing that they are simply the result of thousands of years of behavioural evolution. So often, we are haunted and we don't even know it. I know many people that like to think they are operating freely, with their eyes open and their minds engaged. I seriously doubt if there is a single person alive who is actually able to do this. What colours do you like? How do you view your body? Even someone who has attempted to mentally expunge sociatial expecations of body and body image is most likely still very attached to the human image.

There was a G.I. Joe comercial on television when I was little... it would give some message to the kids, then declare, "Now you know.. and knowing is half the battle." Knowing really is half the battle. How often weakensses plague us unaware. Simply realizing it is there and seeing it. Ah. You. Weakness. Ghost. Be Gone. And it is done. Of course it is not always that easy, but sometimes sunlight is needed to display the dust that covers us all.

I sat down to write about Sun Lit Dust and my computer screen happened to be covered in this magical mythical substance. I remember the first time I ever noticed dust in the air. I was small, I'm not sure how small, and I was soaking up the warmth of the sun as it shone through a large window at our family cottage. It was penetrating my body and my breath was slowing. I lazily opened my eyes and noticed that the air was chaulked full of stuff. What was it? I reached up with my hand and tried to catch some, but there was nothing there. All this dust in the air. It must be there all the time, moving in and out of our lungs and blood, but never visable. It is a substance that makes up a large part of our environment, yet we rarely see it. After that glimps though, I know it's there. Just as it litters the screen of my computer this very moment.

Somone said once that, "We live each day in a virtual reality of our own creating." I like to think of this dust as mine. My embodiment of the ghosts that haunt me. My dust has a bit of a sparkle to it.. almost like miniscule snow particals glittering in the winter light.

In the very last scene of my book, Melanie takes Emily by the hand and lead her out of the shadows and into the sun.. where the sun shines clear through the waif. All that remains is a cloud of sun lit dust, which drifts aimlessly away in the languid summer air. The ghost, when recognized, is nothing.

Perhaps it isn't really that seeing or knowing is half the battle, but that the battle is truely seeing or knowing. I think there is a huge lag time between seeing some proof with our eyes, and understaning it in our hearts. It is the sight of the heart that really counts.

No matter how many times I wipe the dust of my screen.. it will still be there, altering my view of the words I write and the way I feel about them... but at least I can see it. I know that I see the world through a cloud of particals... my skin and the skin of those I love, fluff from the sweaters I wear, hair from my dog and cat, pollen form the plants near my home, salt and water from the sea and lakes that are near where I live.. all of these things fill the air between me and everything I think I see.