A ghost of Christmas present
So I finished writing last night and - sorry for being repetitive but it's the truth - was listening to Sufjan Stevens's "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!" again and again. Maybe 3 times in a row. I was tired from answering emails and writing last night's post. I was facing away from the door, which was slightly ajar. I had only the one lamp next to the desk on. At the bottom of the landing to the stairs, another light was on. I'd been just sitting there, listening. Started crying. (It's sort of happening again. It's an interesting process when you're conscious of its beginning. How the physical reaction of it centers in the very center of the torso. Anyway.) I'm sitting there last night facing away from the door. Something about the words and the melody really fed the whole crying process; I rather got into it. Oh, you should know that I'm wearing headphones. Pretty good Koss headphones, if you ask me: they're that oversized head-hugger style. They're not technically noise-cancelling, but they cancel a lot of ambient noise all the same. You should also know that despite my family's house being located in the v. v. rear of an especially quiet suburban wooded glade, we all still practice extreme caution with regard to home safety and latches and locks. It reaches comical levels if you ask some people. The door at the top of the basement stairs even has a lock on the inner side, which was installed so that if some intruder were to enter through the water well windows that lead into the basement - I know, ridiculous, but still - then that intruder would have an additional barrier in trying to get into the house proper. I'm trying to describe all of this so you can understand some of the pertinent attributes and attitudes and memories and originating conditions that were affecting the things coming into my mind last night. So last night, sitting there, crying, listening to Stevens's "TPWotPIOtGU!", facing away from the doorway which was ajar and could have quite easily be opened w/o a sound, the issue of sound being moot anyway because of the Koss headphones I was wearing, I didn't quite believe that an intruder was going to come in. In fact, what happened didn't have to do with an intruder per se at all. But it became a very tangible thought that there could have been one behind me. It became very important, also, that I not look behind me. If I looked behind me, the very strong sense I had of somebody behind me would either have been proven or disproven. If proven, it would have been bad for obvious A-Film-By-Wes-Craven type reasons. If disproven, it would have affected me adversely for reasons you can probably anticipate. You can probably see where I'm going with this. As I was sitting there, listening, willing myself to not look behind me at the place where I sensed a person or presence could have v. easily been, I had a vivid impression of Jon looking at me. There wasn't really a background to the mental sight of him. It was really more about his eyes and the set to his face, which was slightly taut of brow as though he was trying to understand something and was about to ask a question of me. It was the older Jon, w/o any hair such that his eyebrows seem extremely pronounced.
Now. Does this amount to a Jon-ghost sighting? Let's consider.
o I'm staying in his old room in the basement.
o I had spent a few minutes rearranging the framed pictures on the shelves down here in order to clear space for some Jon paraphernalia, which included an old PC joystick - the Flight Stick - which Jon and I used to play through X-Wing and TIE Fighter, which are still 2 of the best computer games ever, IMHO, and an unsharp old Ka-Bar military knife which I believe had been my Dad's. These two items now sit displayed in the center section of the room's western shelves.
o I had just finished writing about him and my anger towards him for what he'd done. Which makes it especially easy to imagine that he'd been listening or reading over my shoulder unbeknownst to me. Because parts of last night's post have the sort of tone of one preparing an argument before trying it out on the person for whom the argument's been designed. I was, like, lecturing him in absentia, and it's therefore easy to assume that he happened into the room as I was practicing this lecture, i.e. he heard it before I was ready for him to hear it.
Arguments against?
o I tend to equate chance alignments of music and mental sentiment with epiphany and/or insight. Given 3 cups of coffee and the right angle of sunlight and the right song, and given a little bit of poem- or novel-related success, and I will feel like the Golden Child himself. (Another odd reference - where do they come from?) But maybe that's all epiphany is. Maybe that's all ghosts are: very strong impressions that stem from the chance combinations of an individual's sensory data and thoughts. Ghosts might therefore never have objective realities, only subjective ones. Gad. I need to get back into my philosophy texts. Because this sounds a little like Berkeley, doesn't it? That as we are the thoughts of God, little sprites flitting around in His brainspace, so too might Jon have been - last night anyway - a sprite occupying my brainspace, my physical space. Here, let's brush up. Okay. Yes:
"We can't think or talk about an object's being. We can only think or talk about an object's being perceived by someone. We can't know any 'real' object (matter) 'behind' the object as we perceive it, which "causes" our perceptions. All that we know about an object is our perception of it." - Wikipedia entry on George Berkeley.
So much if not all of the whole persisting notion of ghosts has to do, I think, with guilt. I was thinking along this line when I was dozing my way back to consciousness this morning at around 9 AM. I seem to remember having all manner of insights, but I can't quite reclaim them now; I seem also to remember composing a whole poem in my head, and that's obviously completely gone too. But back to ghosts and Berkeley. I'm glad for the notion of other living people not being dependent on others' perceptions; otherwise, it would seem to have led to an absolute solipsism, and while said solipsism leads logically to God - i.e. all thought has its first cause in God - that's just a little more than I want to pledge my allegience to this morning. And his claim that perception minus thought, especially language, is the scientific ideal and the end toward which we should all bend our energies, well, that's very definitely something on which I turn my back. Probably this all isn't an actual implication of what Berkeley's philosophy holds; probably there are hairs to split that would soften my stance toward all of this. Still. I like the attention paid in B.'s philosophy to pure perception. He seems to take it farther, i.e. to mean that this absolute subjectivity of perceptions must logically terminate in a comparison of those subjective impressions, and as a result that there's an eventual equilibrium or parity between our various subjective impressions, and that from this comparing of personal notes on our own individual subjective impressions comes the basis for true objectivity, i.e. the reality on which we build our daily lives. Which of course we all have to have in order to live. It solves nothing w/r/t Jon and the Jon-ghost I quasi-encountered last night. In part, because I was alone and no one can verify it. In part also because had someone else been down here with me, and had the other person's presence been innocuous enough to allow the same thoughts and impressions and sensations to gather in me as they had last night, even then, there wouldn't have been any way for the other person to verify Jon's presence or whatever you want to call it.
But then I think that my ghost argument is a logical fallacy. That a) ghosts are generated by the subjective mind and b) therefore they can't be detected by others, which proves a) that ghosts have only a subjective reality? What kind of daft logic is that? When I come right down to it, nothing has disproved the possibility of actual ghosts except Adult Common Sense. Which fails us all the time, Adult Common Sense does. I suppose that the whole "ghosts = subjective, personal mental impressions" is just the simplest way to affirm / confess to last night's experience; it was the way to explain last night's 1:30 AM phenomenon without sounding flighty or off. But I've got to conclude here that my own rationale isn't sufficiently airtight to disprove the possibility of an actual Jon ghost.
Too much coffee and too little poeming, noveling, running. I'm going to address these three oversights.
Now. Does this amount to a Jon-ghost sighting? Let's consider.
o I'm staying in his old room in the basement.
o I had spent a few minutes rearranging the framed pictures on the shelves down here in order to clear space for some Jon paraphernalia, which included an old PC joystick - the Flight Stick - which Jon and I used to play through X-Wing and TIE Fighter, which are still 2 of the best computer games ever, IMHO, and an unsharp old Ka-Bar military knife which I believe had been my Dad's. These two items now sit displayed in the center section of the room's western shelves.
o I had just finished writing about him and my anger towards him for what he'd done. Which makes it especially easy to imagine that he'd been listening or reading over my shoulder unbeknownst to me. Because parts of last night's post have the sort of tone of one preparing an argument before trying it out on the person for whom the argument's been designed. I was, like, lecturing him in absentia, and it's therefore easy to assume that he happened into the room as I was practicing this lecture, i.e. he heard it before I was ready for him to hear it.
Arguments against?
o I tend to equate chance alignments of music and mental sentiment with epiphany and/or insight. Given 3 cups of coffee and the right angle of sunlight and the right song, and given a little bit of poem- or novel-related success, and I will feel like the Golden Child himself. (Another odd reference - where do they come from?) But maybe that's all epiphany is. Maybe that's all ghosts are: very strong impressions that stem from the chance combinations of an individual's sensory data and thoughts. Ghosts might therefore never have objective realities, only subjective ones. Gad. I need to get back into my philosophy texts. Because this sounds a little like Berkeley, doesn't it? That as we are the thoughts of God, little sprites flitting around in His brainspace, so too might Jon have been - last night anyway - a sprite occupying my brainspace, my physical space. Here, let's brush up. Okay. Yes:
"We can't think or talk about an object's being. We can only think or talk about an object's being perceived by someone. We can't know any 'real' object (matter) 'behind' the object as we perceive it, which "causes" our perceptions. All that we know about an object is our perception of it." - Wikipedia entry on George Berkeley.
So much if not all of the whole persisting notion of ghosts has to do, I think, with guilt. I was thinking along this line when I was dozing my way back to consciousness this morning at around 9 AM. I seem to remember having all manner of insights, but I can't quite reclaim them now; I seem also to remember composing a whole poem in my head, and that's obviously completely gone too. But back to ghosts and Berkeley. I'm glad for the notion of other living people not being dependent on others' perceptions; otherwise, it would seem to have led to an absolute solipsism, and while said solipsism leads logically to God - i.e. all thought has its first cause in God - that's just a little more than I want to pledge my allegience to this morning. And his claim that perception minus thought, especially language, is the scientific ideal and the end toward which we should all bend our energies, well, that's very definitely something on which I turn my back. Probably this all isn't an actual implication of what Berkeley's philosophy holds; probably there are hairs to split that would soften my stance toward all of this. Still. I like the attention paid in B.'s philosophy to pure perception. He seems to take it farther, i.e. to mean that this absolute subjectivity of perceptions must logically terminate in a comparison of those subjective impressions, and as a result that there's an eventual equilibrium or parity between our various subjective impressions, and that from this comparing of personal notes on our own individual subjective impressions comes the basis for true objectivity, i.e. the reality on which we build our daily lives. Which of course we all have to have in order to live. It solves nothing w/r/t Jon and the Jon-ghost I quasi-encountered last night. In part, because I was alone and no one can verify it. In part also because had someone else been down here with me, and had the other person's presence been innocuous enough to allow the same thoughts and impressions and sensations to gather in me as they had last night, even then, there wouldn't have been any way for the other person to verify Jon's presence or whatever you want to call it.
But then I think that my ghost argument is a logical fallacy. That a) ghosts are generated by the subjective mind and b) therefore they can't be detected by others, which proves a) that ghosts have only a subjective reality? What kind of daft logic is that? When I come right down to it, nothing has disproved the possibility of actual ghosts except Adult Common Sense. Which fails us all the time, Adult Common Sense does. I suppose that the whole "ghosts = subjective, personal mental impressions" is just the simplest way to affirm / confess to last night's experience; it was the way to explain last night's 1:30 AM phenomenon without sounding flighty or off. But I've got to conclude here that my own rationale isn't sufficiently airtight to disprove the possibility of an actual Jon ghost.
Too much coffee and too little poeming, noveling, running. I'm going to address these three oversights.
posted by Wil at
7:19 AM
2 Comments:
Luminous beings are we... not this crude matter.
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Anonymous, at 6:33 PM
William as Protector
(See "I'm Writing All Alone" for Wil as Recipient and the Received)
William, I have often been reminded by Wil himself, means “valiant protector.” (http://baby-names.adoption.com, in case you want to look up your own...)
It is Thursday, December 22, 2005. The funeral party is about to proceed from Buranich’s to St. Joseph’s. I am sitting with Penny in Rick’s big white truck. Melissa and Mrs. Lobko are seated in the car. Mr. Lobko stands outside the right rear passenger door, preparing to salute his younger son. Wil is still inside the funeral home, and I wonder aloud if he has insisted on pall bearers’ rights. Penny deems it unlikely, but she’s not sure. Minutes before, when we were still seated inside the funeral home waiting for our party to be called up to pay our final respects (an odd phrase to be sure, as I have been paying my respects to Jon since 9:34 pm on December 17 and will continue to do so for some time to come), Penny had asked me how Wil was doing.
“I don’t know. I’m worried,” I told her honestly.
“Has he broken down at all?”
“Well, yes. But, you know. I just feel like he’s got this wall around him.”
Penny nodded slowly. I stood to take my place on the line forming in front of Jon’s casket.
Now, in the car, Penny begins to talk. Her words are simply declarative, in no way meant to reprimand, but nevertheless they present an angle from which to view Wil’s stoicism that I had failed to consider in the course of my vigilant (and on some counts, faulty) observation. In a quavering, almost self-reflective voice she said, “I don’t know what I would do if I lost my child. You know, it’s like, someone has to be strong in this family right now, and there’s no way you can expect it to be Maureen or Bill. They are going through such hell right now. I think they need Will to be strong.” At this moment, Wil dashes from the doors of the funeral home and ducks into the car beside Melissa.
(Now, Wil, you have blogged at length about this notion of being strong, that it should not, does not necessarily entail blocked emotion. That said, you intuited that it would be entirely too painful for everyone to go to pieces at once. By protecting your family, your parents in particular, from the full throes of your grief for the duration of the services, you gave them the gift of succumbing fully to their own. When I considered what I had deemed your stoicism in this light I remembered this image, one which I had incorrectly - or perhaps just incompletely - interpreted as self-preservation at the time and now realize was far more complicated).
Watch carefully. Wil’s technique is evasive. He is sitting on the cushioned, floral-print couch in the center of the front row in the funeral home, Melissa to his right, Dad next to her and Mom on the other end of couch. It is a time I can only imagine was expressly provided for quiet mourning. I don’t remember how we all came to understand this, if something was said or some signal given, but everyone is seated. No one is talking. The full weight of The Event is upon each of us. There are three sounds to be heard in the room; the piccolo of the video tribute predominates, this laced with quiet crying and sighs. Audible only if you are seated near him is the clicking of Wil’s ever-present pen, which he holds in his left hand, resting his left elbow on his left knee, his left ankle crossed over his right knee, his left foot beating time to the tempo of the pen clicking. It takes me a minute to guess that this is not a nervous tick. I’m fairly certain he’s clicking to the beat of Meat Loaf’s Bat of Hell. His jaw is set. He’s not going to cry right now.
Melissa, I observed the same determined setting of your jaw, and in no way should the following snapshot of Wil as Protector imply that you were in the position of She In Need of Protecting. You executed your duties as sister and daughter with a dignity that was singularly impressive and entirely your own. I also must believe that those actions which might warrant the “Protector” label I have assigned him here were received by you as gestures of the love and support.
Fast forward to St. Joseph’s, where Melissa is standing at the podium, offering us images and memories of her older brother. Wil stands a foot or so behind her. Up to this point, I have experienced my own sadness in waves of forgetting and remembering. Not that I actually forgot that Jon was gone, but at times it seemed like he might walk in the room at any moment and everyone would look up and smile and ask what had taken him so long to get there. As Melissa speaks, you can see a similar cycle washing through her. When she describes Jon’s horror years ago at discovering he has accidentally whacked her in the head with a golf club, drawing a fair amount of blood, you can tell that she is there, that Jon is in front of her, that for a moment she is with him again. And when she pauses between anecdotes with a sharp intake of breath you can tell that she is exactly where you see her, at his funeral, addressing a room full of people who are not Jon. At every pause, at every stifled sob or sniffle, Wil’s hand goes up to the nape of his sister’s neck and rests there gently before falling to his side again. It is a reminder, a renewal, a promise that he’s right behind her.
The funeral is over. The meatballs and scalloped potatoes are eaten. The flowers will be delivered to the house. As Mr. Lobko steers the car up the drive, Mrs. Lobko reminds him to check the mail. “I’ll walk down to get it,” he says. First he’ll take the dog out. Melissa and Mrs. Lobko go in the house and Mr. Lobko leads a jubilant, oblivious Bailey into the backyard. “I’ll get the mail, Dad,” Wil offers, and we walk down to the end of the driveway. Squeaking open the metal door, Wil takes out a stack of envelopes. Buried underneath what appears to be a fresh delivery of sympathy cards is a large, flat manila envelope. “Oh, that’s nice,” Wil says. “It’s from the coroner’s office. I don’t think we need that right now.” He pauses. “I’m glad I’m the one who checked the mail.” He chucks it back in the mailbox, slams the door shut with a flat hand and tucks the stack of red and white envelopes under his arm. “Ready?” he asks, and treks up the drive.
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