It’s been kind of a theme lately to delve into my past. I went by another old house of ours, one that figures strongly into a period of time I’m revisiting for another novel. This story, unexpected and close, requires journeying to places that are harder for me to go. I had ideas of stopping by my old place some weekend, maybe even knocking on the door to ask if I could wander around the yard, if not intrude completely and ask to come in.
I didn’t need to.
Driving by was enough, at least for the time being. Sometimes the past is best revisited gradually.
People talk about places being vortices of energy and when it comes to new age theories and paranormal speculation I keep a skeptical open mind, if the contradiction makes sense. I don’t know what’s true or not and it’s wild arrogance to assume we know everything about everything, but I also think things like “energies” are subjective and largely based on our own moods and experiences.
But I do know that for me some places feel like the air is charged and other places feel like the air is dead.
My old neighborhood is one of those places where the air has drained out.
I needed to get out of there, to take a deep breath.
I passed a little girl on my road and I wondered if she lived in my old house, if she tried to sleep now in my old bedroom, and whether it still had the wallpaper with the blue flowers that looked deceptively cheery in the daytime. At night the dark parts of the design stood out like demon eyes.
I don’t know if it was my own volatile mix of preteen energy and unhappiness alone or if something else was there. But I was afraid at night and afraid to go to school during the day and hated coming home and hated going to school and if whatever was there fed off negative energy then it had itself a feast.
The air hasn’t moved.
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