Ghost stories
I grew up with Estella and Jay, who would tell me ghost stories. Jay is this feisty freckled woman whose childhood was mostly swimming in the sea, acting like a boy, running from her mother's bad temper (and bamboo sticks), screaming at her parents while breaking them up in their fights. Estella, reminds me of an earth mother, when she is in the kitchen pounding at spices.
One of the stories was about the trolls that inhabited the garden where Jay lived in Mindanao. The trolls were perverts who would peep in on the sisters who were sleeping. They smelled ("like sweat and armpits," she said.) They played on trees, and lived on fruit. Everywhere they went, they would leave a trail of ants. One day, she woke up and realized someone had taken off her shirt. The next day, a little man appeared at the door, asking if she would be the queen of the trolls. The father left a red cloth at the doorstep, as if to say, keep out. The next week the family moved, nearer to the town.
Living near the forest and by the sea, one has to be careful to read the signs. Do not stray where the fireflies are. If you think you see things, make the sign of the cross and say the Apostles Creed, pray that Mother Mary (Oh, Maria!) will save your sorry ass, and you run for dear life.
When I moved into my apartment in the summer in Harlem, the first thing I noticed was the walls were blood red. The first things I like to do in a new place is to dust, clean, rearrange things. Maybe it's an obsessive female thing. But I'd like to think it's like an exorcism of sorts. You check every corner for dust and remnants of the previous tenant: fingernails, a stray earring, a guitar pick, usually lots of hair. You keep what you want, sweep everything else out. When you slowly inhabit the room, everything that is strange becomes familiar.
If I could do a project, I would go around to talk to a million different people in Singapore, and ask them to tell me ghost stories. Not the Russell Lee stuff (guilty confession: I read all that crap as a kid.) I'm thinking of Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales (Harcourt Brace, 1980). Imagine an archive of narrated ghost stories, and even better, like the way the Times documents its New Yorkers, voice recordings cut into slide shows of beautiful black and white photos of their lives. (I would have to learn to speak all the dialects and Malay probably just to do that). And then I would feel better that even in a city where everywhere is lit by fluorescent light, there are haunted, unopened rooms.
Do you have a ghost story?
One of the stories was about the trolls that inhabited the garden where Jay lived in Mindanao. The trolls were perverts who would peep in on the sisters who were sleeping. They smelled ("like sweat and armpits," she said.) They played on trees, and lived on fruit. Everywhere they went, they would leave a trail of ants. One day, she woke up and realized someone had taken off her shirt. The next day, a little man appeared at the door, asking if she would be the queen of the trolls. The father left a red cloth at the doorstep, as if to say, keep out. The next week the family moved, nearer to the town.
Living near the forest and by the sea, one has to be careful to read the signs. Do not stray where the fireflies are. If you think you see things, make the sign of the cross and say the Apostles Creed, pray that Mother Mary (Oh, Maria!) will save your sorry ass, and you run for dear life.
When I moved into my apartment in the summer in Harlem, the first thing I noticed was the walls were blood red. The first things I like to do in a new place is to dust, clean, rearrange things. Maybe it's an obsessive female thing. But I'd like to think it's like an exorcism of sorts. You check every corner for dust and remnants of the previous tenant: fingernails, a stray earring, a guitar pick, usually lots of hair. You keep what you want, sweep everything else out. When you slowly inhabit the room, everything that is strange becomes familiar.
If I could do a project, I would go around to talk to a million different people in Singapore, and ask them to tell me ghost stories. Not the Russell Lee stuff (guilty confession: I read all that crap as a kid.) I'm thinking of Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales (Harcourt Brace, 1980). Imagine an archive of narrated ghost stories, and even better, like the way the Times documents its New Yorkers, voice recordings cut into slide shows of beautiful black and white photos of their lives. (I would have to learn to speak all the dialects and Malay probably just to do that). And then I would feel better that even in a city where everywhere is lit by fluorescent light, there are haunted, unopened rooms.
Do you have a ghost story?
Labels: Ghost stories
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