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Just My Thoughts | ||||||
These last several months have brought about some strange and unexplainable happenings for me. I know that I am speaking of May and June, but am thoroughly chastising myself for not writing down the exact dates. I am the first to tell others to make sure they write things down and am guilty of not following my own advice. Despite not knowing the exact dates, I can share each occurrence without hesitation as they are quite ingrained in my mind. I even know the correct order of the events. Before I get into detail here, let me say that despite my interest in the unexplained since about the age of eight, not many things have happened to me in the area of the supernatural. I've waited patiently for the last 34 years - well... not always patiently. At age 12, I experienced firsthand, the haunted house of a friend. This included the sounds, candle séances and calming my friend's terrified Mother when she swung around the stairway banister and ran into an Indian woman carrying a papoose on her back. At the age of 33, I lived in an old house where occasionally I would smell cigar smoke and perfume, and where regularly, the sound of moving furniture was prominent in the room above the living room. My poor oldest daughter took the brunt of that noise until I investigated for myself on numerous occasions and found her sound asleep with all noises ceasing the second I reached the top of the stairs. Now, I am purposely searching for the unknown for this website and magazine, so maybe that is the reason these strange events have begun to occur.
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The first strange happening concerned our Schnauzer, Ashes. She is almost 10 years old and, like people, after living with her for so long, any odd behavior is going to be noticed immediately. On this night, the Night Watchman and I were watching the movie "White Noise" and Ashes was lying on the floor at the end of the couch.
Suddenly, Ashes leapt up, barreled around the couch and literally pushed her way onto my lap as I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch. Though she loves attention, this is not something she does. I talked to her and stroked her, but suddenly she leapt from my lap and up onto the couch like a bullet, settling herself strangely on the far couch arm. We paused the movie at this point and I turned on my knees to face the couch, calling her down to me. She jumped down, sitting stock still in front of me. She didn't appear to be breathing and was not creeping closer, as customary, to nudge for an extra bit of petting. I thought she was choking though I don't know why, so I massaged her throat area. Still she didn't move. My heart pumping now, I picked her up, bouncing her to the door. I figured if she was choking, I might dislodge the object this way. Once outside on her lead, Ashes was as normal as ever, snooping for interesting smells in the grass. Back inside several minutes later, she came for pets, then lay down again by the couch. Nothing of consequence has happened with her since that night. About a week later, the Night Watchman and I had gone to bed. I was restless, kind of flopping this way and that, and couldn't seem to get comfortable enough to go to sleep. Finally, I flipped over to face the Night Watchman. I could see from the light coming through the window that he was sound asleep, facing me, with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
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I must have dozed briefly when I was awakened by someone rocking me back and forth - not very gently either. My first instinct was to smack the Night Watchman and tell him to knock it off. Instead, I opened my eyes and saw him lying just as he'd been when I'd turned to face him, yet I was still being rocked from behind. I could actually feel a hand on my hip and shoulder. My heart was hammering so hard that I seriously thought it was going to burst out of my chest and I couldn't catch my breath. This went on, to the best of my recall as I could not see a clock, for no less than three minutes from the time I'd opened my eyes. Then, I felt the hand lift from my hip and the other hand slide from my shoulder down to my shoulder blade, then I didn't feel it anymore at all. The rocking stopped. Just that quick, breathing was easy again and my heart slowed its way back to a normal pace. After the experience, I remember wishing that I had turned to look, but I truly don't know if I could have moved even if I had thought to try. What sticks in my mind the clearest with this experience is the feel of the second hand sliding off my shoulder and to my shoulder blade. It's what made me able to tangibly validate the experience for myself. After this, a week or so later, one of our readers let us know about a cemetery where the spirit of a little girl is known to wander and tug at people's clothes while she cries out for "Ree". The Night Watchman and I made plans to go check it out during the day so that when we decided to go at night, it would be familiar to us. In the meantime, a friend had ordered one of my books and wrote me to tell me that he had received it. I returned his email telling him about the little girl and our plans to visit the cemetery. This was on a Saturday night as I was home alone. I was doing dishes after sending the email and my cell phone rang. It wasn't a number that I recognized, so I let it ring and figured that whoever it was would leave a message. They did. It was the friend whom I had emailed. The message was creepy in itself saying that I needed to check my email as quickly as possible and to take seriously what was written there.
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