(March 6, 2010) I have recently taken to daily walks again, now that the weather is starting to warm up a bit. I am not a winter person. Spring cannot get here soon enough for me. The main reason I have taken to the streets is to lose weight. The producers who are developing my new show recently sent me a one-minute teaser they had put together to market the show. While it was quite good and really scary, the more frightening thing for me was seeing my multiple chins! It is true the average camera will put on pounds—this camera must have been possessed. I need to lose about 40 pounds and it’s going to happen. Walking is where I am starting. I always love a good jaunt, especially this time of year when spring is just around the corner. The ghosts love it to.
People often ask if I have the ability to “turn off” my psychic senses. Yes, to some extent, I do. I think there is always a baseline of activity in my brain for sensing things out of the ordinary, but I usually ignore it and go on with my everyday life. I am not “turned on” all of the time. That would make me nuts. I enjoy a little privacy every now and then from both the living and the dead.
I am one of those people who does not mind spending a few hours with myself. Whether it is reading, surfing the web or walking around the town, I enjoy a little solitude. Having grown up a chronic daydreamer, I often catch my mind wandering off. If I am looking at a website, I may be thinking of a movie I just watched or a place I will visit, which typically has nothing to do with the website. This is my life. Growing up with ADD (attention deficit disorder) I have become used to having to constantly refocus my brain and point it in the right direction. Sometimes I win and refocus on the task at hand, sometimes my brain just drives away without me! Walking seems to be an activity that brings my mind and body into a happy middle ground. Taking a daily jaunt is just the right mix of exercise and meditation for me. However, it does have a few distractions—and they are usually of the dead kind.
I am fortunate to live in an area in northern New Jersey that is rich in history. Old houses, some dating back to Colonial times, line many streets along my walking routes. I am a great fan of history and love to view all the wonderful architecture from an up close and stationary position on a nearby sidewalk, something one cannot do easily from a moving car. Some of the houses I have noticed before, and some seem to have popped out of thin air. Large, stately Victorian homes are clustered amongst smaller, quaint dwellings from long ago. Sometimes I get an internal dialogue going with myself about how much fun it would be to live in one of these great old places. Every so often, that dialogue becomes a two-way conversation, or even an overheard conversation—with the dead.
I don’t consciously turn on my psychic senses when I am out walking. I try to clear my mind, and envision dropping about 40 pounds in the process. Somehow, my psychic brain just finds these “new friends” and rushes off in their direction. While I try to reason with my brain to stop “trespassing,” it seems to have a social agenda of its own.
On my last jaunt, I was walking up a long hill that seemed to stretch for a mile. I slowed down near a large old fence to take a breather, when I noticed an enormous old Victorian home practically falling into the roadway. It was not actually falling, it was just very close to the road. I stopped and gazed up at the highest windows. I felt like Anthony Perkins in Psycho looking up at the tower in his home for “Mother.” As I stood a moment to catch my breath, I could feel the house’s energy close in around me—or was my psychic brain doing the moving instead? Whatever was happening, one of us was moving—metaphysically at least.
I started seeing images of people from the past and everyday events from a time long ago. A woman in along dress bathing a child in an old claw foot tub. A man shaving with a long, straight edge razor and even images of people playing horseshoes. No one living was home, as far as I could tell from the street. The voices in my head were muddled and distant, the way I will hear ghostly voices when I enter a haunted house. But I hadn’t entered the house, so why was I hearing them? I decided since I was not there to investigate the ghosts that I would continue on my way up the hill. The images and voices quickly faded. I had reached the end of the psychic tether.
Shortly thereafter, I passed and old home that is now a museum. It dates back to the 1700s and is now open to the public. The last owner of the home died in 1970 and her companion who was her long time servant died soon after. I think the two ladies are still in the house, but the current group that runs the place wants no mention of ghosts. I tried to tell the man in charge that ghosts will help bring in business and his four or five visitors a day would probably jump to 20 or 30. Alas, he is not a ghost person, but that did not stop the ladies from reaching out to me as I passed.
Now I have passed this old house hundreds of times by car. I guess that is too fast for a psychic connection to form. On foot it is another story. I was given orders to please help fix the home, that is was in dire need of repair. Hmmm—I thought, the house was not that bad inside when I recently took the tour. I do love history. Maybe I should volunteer to help. There is a group of “friends” that has been fixing up the state owned house for years. I may just have to look into a little volunteer work. If only they would let me talk about the ghosts. I made a note of the ladies’ requests and continued on my way.
I soon arrived at the local hardware store, feeling quite exhilarated and winded at the same time. I also realized I did not know about a worn spot in the back of one of my old sneakers. I now have a blister haunting my heel to boot—no pun intended. As I was purchasing some suet and a feeder for the local woodpecker in our yard (which was the reason I walked all the way up to the hardware store) I could not help but wonder just how often ghosts will try to reach out to passers by. It must be a very frustrating exercise in futility. I think many people have some degree of psychic ability, but what are the chances of someone who is open and understanding of the energy passing by a house at the same time the ghosts are trying to communicate with the outside world?
So, in addition to losing weight, I will now be on the lookout for any ghostly friends along the way. The next time I take my psychic brain out for a walk, it is going to be on a tight leash. One can never tell just what one will encounter along the way. Just like in life, there are positive energies and negative energies everywhere. I do not want accidentally experience anything negative along the way. Unless of course, it is the numbers on my scale at home heading in a negative direction—about negative 40 would be good.
For my intuitive and psychic friends out there—next time you go out for a jaunt—keep your eyes, ears and brain open. You never know what could be walking along with you.
Haunted North Jersey….here you come!