I'm a believer

I get made fun of for this often enough, but I DO believe in ghosts. I'm sayin' it loud and proud: I do believe, I do! (I can't remember what I just quoted... Peter Pan maybe? or Wizard of Oz?)

I watch every ghost show I find on TV, and they're always scary. Well, almost every show. I don't like the ones where the 'psychics' go into a house with the lights off and close their eyes and fall over and say, 'oh my! there is a disturbed spirit here!' C'mon, I could do that. (Psychic Detectives, however, is pretty awesome).

Has anyone seen TAPS? Actually, it's called Ghost Hunters, but that name is unoriginal. These two real-life Roto Rooter guys in (I think) Rhode Island get calls to come investigate hauntings, and they run around at night with all sorts of crazy video and sound equipment trying to capture proof of the ghosts. Now that I put that into words, I just realized that it's my dream job.

I was big into ghosts and ghost hunting as a kid and was always convinced that I was surrounded by ghosts, although most of them were benevolent. But I've only had one ghost experience that really shook me up. I'm really into cemeteries, which I know is a little weird. It's not a morbid thing, really, I just love the quiet calmness, the interesting stones, the idea of connecting with a very personal history of the area. Most of the people in cemeteries you'll never find in history books, so you're free to imagine who they were, what they were like, and how they ended up with a tiny memorial right there in the midst of a bunch of other memorials for people they may or may not have ever met. There are plenty more reasons I like visiting cemeteries, but, as this is just background info, I'll skip ahead.

A friend and I are driving around southern Georgia one day in college looking for little, forgotten cemeteries to wander through. Around dusk we decide to head back to Tallahassee, but then decide to make just one more stop (isn't this the way horror movies start?). We find a cemetery that's a ways back off the main road and surrounded by woods. It's small and unlit and we're the only people there. The stones are mostly new, which usually means there's not as much 'atmosphere' (for lack of a better word) or that the 'vibe' is fainter. But as I'm walking around, the vibe is quite strong, and it's not happy. As I approach one corner, the air feels more and more dangerous. I look up, and my friend, who was in another section, was looking at me at the same time, and we both knew it was time to leave.

As I turned back to the car, though, there was a small rustling in the woods behind me. I glanced back and a beautiful white horse was leaning its head over the fence and into the cemetery. I have never been more drawn to a creature than I was to that horse who apparently came out of no where because dead leaves covered the ground in the woods and it didn't make a sound until I turned my back. As I started to walk back towards it with my hand outstretched, my friend literally had to PULL me back to the car. As we drove away, though, we both felt something with us, something in the car. I even put the window down a little as if I could chase it out like a fly or bee. Finally, we drove within the warm light of the Waffle House and gas station signs and it seemed to disperse.

In retrospect, I wonder what the intent of that encounter was. I wonder if it was a ghost or maybe some other type of spirit. I wonder if that negative feeling was coming from the burial ground or if it wasn't from that friend who, it turned out, was an absolutely repulsive human being who put me in a lot of bad situtaions. I'm surprised I got out of that alive, sometimes, and I wonder how or if anything would have changed if I had pet that horse like I so wanted to.