Tag Archives: family

The Woman In The Corner – Ghost Story

Main Piece

Informant KO recalled a memorate from when she was in middle school after moving with her family to a new home. While renovations were being performed on the home, she and her family found a number of strange things: “a child’s train tracks, a weird oil permit…a picture of this woman in the wall.”

KO and her family started asking and telling each other stories about who this woman in the portrait might be: “What if she was someone’s mistress? What if she was murdered? [My family and I] went to all the dark stuff first.”

One night, while asleep in her bedroom, KO randomly woke up in the middle of the night – unusual for her – and recalls that it was either exactly 3 or 3:30am. She looked towards the corner of her room and saw the woman standing there “in a long white dress, with long black hair.”

She recalls that she was very tired and more nervous than afraid at the time, and “hoped she’d go away if [she] just hid,” so she pulled the covers over her head and tried to go back to sleep. When she woke up in the morning, the woman in the corner was gone.

KO told her parents and a few friends about the experience. When told, her Mom said that she’d been “hearing footsteps down the hallway” but didn’t want to say anything and scare KO’s little sister.

KO and her family have been living in the house ever since, but KO has never seen the woman again. She questions whether the experience was just a dream.

Interpretation

Informant’s Interpretation: KO, as stated, questions whether the whole affair was just a dream and thinks her “brain was primed to see a ghost” because of what had been found in the house and her mom’s observations. She finds it to be a classic example of thinking you may have seen a ghost, and key to her uncertainty about ghosts’ existence.

Personal Interpretation: I see this story and experience as reactive to and inclusive of the environment it takes place in, similar to many ghost stories. The context of moving, renovation (altering the old), and being confronted with unknown pieces of physical history set the stage to wonder and consider who lived in this house beforehand, and speaks to a human curiosity towards trying to understand the unknown. I also feel that this experience seems like it sticks out in KO’s memory so prominently because of the age she was when it took place–at a time when kids are starting to process their own place in the world and sort out what is real from what is, an personal experience with one of these unknowns holds a great impact. The actual appearance in the corner being a woman wearing a long white dress evoked wedding-esque symbolism to me, and I can recall many ghost stories focused on brides / the marriage status of a woman, particularly in relation to death and household spirits.

Background

Informant KO is a current student at USC pursuing a degree in Narrative Studies from Seattle, Washington. Her family (mom, dad, younger sister) still lives in the house noted in the story. KO remains unsure whether she believes in ghosts, but thinks of this as a key part of her belief that they “maybe” exist.

KO is white and of Canadian and Swedish descent, and is female-presenting.

Family Christmas Cookie Making

Main Piece

“Every Christmas, our house becomes a ‘candy factory’ – at some point when I was growing up, my mom found recipes for chocolate fudge, peanut butter toffee fudge, and peppermint bark, tweaked some of them so they didn’t have quite as many sticks of butter and cups of sugar, and started making them to give to neighbors and family. My dad started bringing them to work to give to his coworkers too, and now it’s something everyone looks forward to getting from us each year. My brother and I started helping make them pretty early on, at least since I was in eighth grade, and it’s become a key Christmas tradition – responsibility, even – to share with our mom every year.”

Interpretation

Informant’s Interpretation: This tradition holds primary relevance to informant as a family tradition. She likes to spend the time with her mom, but notes that since the whole thing puts a stress on her mom, helping can sometimes “feel more like a duty than a fun cozy Christmas tradition.” However, she notes that she still heavily associates this with how her family celebrates Christmas and thus enjoys it.

Personal Interpretation: I find this to be a classic example of a family Christmas tradition–particularly so because other families recognize it as such and come to enforce the idea of the tradition from a slightly-external perspective. While associated with a religious holiday, I don’t see any particular direct connection to Christian tradition other than perhaps the origins of the types of cookies. That said, it feels pretty removed from any religious context and has more to do with the time of year and family-centric association than anything else.

Background

Informant is a 21 year old college student raised in Rancho Bernardo, California. She is female-presenting, white, and of European descent.

Conversations with Spirits during Dreams (Memorate)

Text 

Collector: “Have you ever been contacted by a spirit?” 

Informant: “With loved ones that I have lost, I have had experiences with them partially in the physical world and a lot in the metaphysical slash dream world. When our Nana died, I started having dreams about her and they felt immensely real. I’ll still have some every now and again. I’ve had experiences with my father’s grandfather who passed away. Immediately after he passed away, he came to me in a dream and told me things about myself, gifts that I had, and I felt like he was very at peace with his death. I only experienced him once, same with my great-grandmother. Two days prior to her physical death.” 

Collector: “What made this experience feel different than other dreams, your normal dreams?” 

Informant: “In these dreams, I felt paralyzed like another force was holding on to me. Almost like my soul was in a different place and then needed time to get back to my body. I found myself lying in bed. I heard the sound of static like a television channel. It grew louder. I grew more uneasy. My body felt celestial is the best way to put it.” 

Context

The Informant is a 26-year-old man. He’s had several spiritual interactions through intense dreams and episodes of sleep paralysis. Each interaction was with a deceased family member after or nearly before their time of passing. The Informant expressed he could have full-length conversations with the dead through this medium. 

Analysis

I found it interesting that the Informant’s spiritual interactions took place during vivid dreams. This reminded me of the article, “Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore” when the author Ülo Valk explains that, “visual and auditory experiences with spirits can also occur in dreamlike states.” (Valk 34) In this dream space, both parties could say their peace. These encounters also happened near the Spirit’s time of death. This could be interpreted as the Spirit “finishing business” with loved ones before moving on to the afterlife. Valk also notes that spiritual interactions commonly occur in transition periods where there are feelings of, “disorientation, uncertainty, discontinuity, [and] unrootedness.” (Valk 35) Those emotions are common during grief. For the Informant, these spiritual conversations helped both parties to emotionally move forward and find peace in their respective realms. 

Spirits using Smells to Contact the Living (Memorates)

Text:

Informant 1 (son): “I will have experiences where if I’m at a deep state of indecision I’m or if I’m doing something that may not be right. I can smell [my Nana]. A smell will come to me and it smells like a mix of cigarettes and perfume. And I know that it’s her. Or if like I need to be doing something or calling someone or just doing something I can smell it. And it’s a very distinct smell like nothing I own smells like that.”

Informant 2 (mother): “When my Mom first left, she was a smoker, so I’d be driving, and all of a sudden I could smell smoke in my car. You just kind of know. [My son, Informant 1] snuck out one night and he left and then he called us. He was like: ‘Don’t get mad, I was going to a party but I started smelling smoke in the car, I knew it was Nana so I’m turning around.’”

Collector: “So the spirits can use specific smells? To communicate or make their presence known?”

Informant 2: “Yes. The spirits have to figure out how to get your attention.”

Context:

Both Informants are related. Informant 2 is the mother of Informant 1 (Male, 26 years old). I conducted two separate interviews asking the Informants to share memorates, and both mentioned the ability to smell the deceased. This smell came from the same deceased family member they refer to as Nana (Informant #1’s Grandma and Informant 2’s Mother). 

Analysis:

In both stories, a ghost contacts the living in moments of internal conflict or bad behavior. The Deceased’s unique smell signaled their “spiritual presence” which helped guide the Informants into making the right decisions. Almost like an Angel sent to protect the living from danger. Informant 1’s spiritual encounter while sneaking out reminded me of a quote from Ülo Valk’s article, “Ghostly Possession and Real Estate.” The author writes that perceived interactions with spirits, “are sometimes caused by fears related to the breaking of behavioral norms.” (Valk 34) The son’s conscience knew sneaking out was wrong. When the smell appeared, he perceived the dead as present, the spirit of a family member was watching over his actions. The “fear” of disappointing the dead swayed Informant 1 into “turning around” to obey the “behavioral norms” set forth by his parents.

Sage to Prevent Spirits from Haunting Property

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Informant: “My mom had many experiences with ghosts. During her twenties, she was constantly moving apartments and had strange experiences in each of them. Doors would open and shut. At night figures appeared and then disappeared. She could hear voices when no one was around, stuff like that. So the next time she moved, she burned sage in the apartment. Now I do that whenever I have to move into a new home. You are supposed to burn sage because you don’t know who’s been on the land. People’s spirits stick around. I think people linger when their spirit is lost and they can’t move on because they’re stuck. People get stuck. Sage will scare out the old spirits.”

Context

The Informant is a 48-year-old Black-American woman. She learned this ghost prevention ritual from her mother and passed it on to me. The Informant interprets this ritual as a way to cleanse new spaces of old spirits. 

Analysis

The Informant and her family are from America, a country that emphasizes individualism, private ownership, and the right to property. This nation’s philosophy stems from John Locke’s individualist ideals in the Second Treatise of Government. In the Treatise, Locke writes that “every man has a property in his own person” and he can take ownership in anything that comes from “the labour of his body, and the work of his hands” (Locke 5:27) In America, the home is where one manages both properties: bodily and physical. The physical property is maintained through household labor (ex: mowing lawn, mopping floors). Homeowners maintain their bodily property through facilities inside the home (ex: stove to cook, bath to bathe). A home is a place where personhood and physical property mingle (ex: homeowners decorate spaces to reflect personal tastes). In short, individuals are strongly tied to property in American culture. Thus when a homeowner dies, it can be difficult for a new person to move in and feel “at home.” Burning sage can be seen as a way to ease the transition between homeowners. The ritual clears out the old spirits to create a clean slate. A blank canvas to welcome new identity, personalization, and labor.