I feel haunted. Ever since my earliest memories ive sensed a connection to someone or something i couldnt define. I have an obsession with the past. I grew up with stories my mother would tell about the ghosts and "haints", or hauntings, that she heard about as a child in Logan West Virginia. The figure in white holding a staff that walked out of the tunnel near the mine. The spirit of the woman on the top of the mountain who cries for her dead baby. Even as an adult she had encounters with the unexplained. She saw my uncles face looking in her window the night he died even though he lived in another state. She dreamed of my brothers deaths before they happened. My grandmother appeared to her after her death. Whatever my mother has in her spirit she passed to me. When i was little we would go "down home" to W.Va. on summer weekends. We would drive down after dad got off work on fridays and get to W.Va. after dark. As we'd travel the winding mountain roads bordered by woods i would sense the eyes of the ghosts watching us from behind the trees. I always expected to see one of them run across the road illuminated by our headlights. My mother would tell me to lay down in the backseat and go to sleep. As i get older the connection gets stronger. Maybe because theres more past to remember. Maybe because of the people ive lost. And maybe i just dislike the present so much that i seek refuge in the past. Or maybe it comes looking for me. I only know its there. I see the shadows moving around me. I feel the presence next to me. Intuition or insanity? Ghosts or guardian angels? I dont know. Somedays its a comfort and others it frightens me. If theyre ghosts i dont understand why they follow me. If theyre guardian angels i wish theyd step it up a bit. Maybe theyre both. They say restless spirits are seeking answers. Maybe they sense my spirit is restless too.
I hold hands with strangers all day. Isnt that funny? They walk in, sit down, give me their hands and confide in me. I am a manicurist. It amazes me that people who may not even like to get too close to other people will put themselves in that position. But they do. They tell me about their husbands, their boyfriends (or both), their children, their jobs. I hear about the time they wrecked their car, or how they steal cable. I know what size jeans they wear. And unless ive known them for years, they can barely remember my name. But i nod and smile and scrape yesterdays dinner (i hope) out from under their nails. This is what i gave up music for. Like i said. Smarter about somethings. Dumber about others.
It is somehow comforting, though, to have formed relationships with so many different people. In nearly 30 years, there have been hundreds. Ive laughed with all of them, cried with some of them, been to their weddings, their funerals...Ive even done a clients nails in the funeral home before her funeral. It was one of the hardest things Ive ever done. Some have bought me groceries when I was going through a hard time. They cheered me through the death of my Dad, they giggled with me during the blossoming of my relationship with Juergen. If he and I should someday get married, many of them will be at our wedding.
What sort of bonds would I have formed if I'd stayed in Nashville? Probably none as strong as, or stronger than, these.
Maybe I'm not so dumb after all.
Ive been alive 46 years. 46. Thats astonishing to me. I feel 30. Only smarter about some things and dumber about others. When i was 30 i had grand ideas of where id be when i turned 40. I was a songwriter then. Id written my first song when i was nine. Id been singing since i could talk. At 30 i had a band and i moved to Nashville. I was single and unencumbered. I lived there 2 years, worked 2 jobs, and sang at writers nites and open mic's on the weekends. It was a struggle and i almost had my car repossessed. But i was happy. Then, back home in ohio, my parents got ill. My mom had cancer. My dad had enphysema. I was the youngest and had the least responsibility so i went home. My father died. My mom moved in with me. I never went back to Nashville. I havent been on a stage in 13 years. Astonishing. Im 46. And im beginning to see i am all im ever going to be.
