witches | Bertram's Blog

After Grief: Crashing the Party of Life

December 14, 2012 — Pat Bertram

witch Once a long time ago, I crashed a Halloween party. It sounds as if I am very bold, doesn’t it? But truly, it was out of character for me, and besides, I was in costume. I remember that the party was given by a friend of a friend, but I have no idea how or why I decided to go — perhaps as a joke to see how long it would take for people to realize they didn’t know me.

I dressed as a comic-book witch — the whole bit: long black scraggly hair, puttied nose and chin almost meeting, heavy black brows, green-tinged skin, cackling voice. I walked into the party as if I belonged there, and for a while I was the belle of the ball as people tried to guess who I was. It finally occurred to one guy that I was a total stranger. So I left. Rather hurriedly.

That’s how I feel now as I am reawakening to the world after the numbness that gripped me during the long dying of my life mate/soul mate and the grief I experienced after his death — as if I have crashed a party, and I don’t know myself or any of the guests. Everyone seems costumed in happiness and success, though I know those facades are as misleading as mine. Our smiles and even our laughter hide old sorrows and new insecurities.

I couldn’t follow my mate to wherever he went, so I this is what is left to me — trying to find my way alone, wondering why I am at the party. I don’t belong, but where else would I be?

I remember the quiet excitement I felt at that Halloween party, the adrenaline rush of stepping out of my normal life, and occasionally I feel that now, as if the world is opening to me, if I only knew what to do with it. I left that Halloween party when the situation became too uncomfortable, but I don’t have that option now. Even though I am not comfortable with life’s party I have inadvertantly ended up attending, I have to stick it out, waiting for . . . what? I do not know.

And so here I am, boldly acting as if I belong, but secretly wondering if anyone will guess that I am a stranger in a strange land.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Posted in being me, culture, grief. Tags: after grief, crashing a party, death of a soul mate, Halloween party, surviving grief, witches. Leave a Comment »

Have a chilly, scary, rationally-explained Halloween!

October 30, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Please welcome JJ Dare, friend and fellow Second Wind author. JJ writes thrillers (False Positive and False World), and is one of the collaborators on the Rubicon Ranch serial. Her Rubicon Ranch characters amuse me because they are so unrepentently manipulative and unabashedly malevolent. (How can they not be with such a father as Morris Sinclair?)

Personally, I don’t like to be scared — it’s too . . . scary — so I invited JJ to talk what scares us and why we like to be scared:

Along with countless others, I love a good scare and this time of the year is perfect for terror and thrills. Halloween is right around the corner. Ghosts, goblins and zombies reign over the land. Witches, warlocks and evil fairies lurk around sharp corners. That bump-in-the-night sound makes your heart beat faster. The skittering across the floor in a dark room gets the blood pumping. What is that shadow outside flitting across the top of the window?

Why do we love to be scared? It’s a rhetorical question because the answer for one person is probably different for another. For myself, I like the rush of the initial terror followed by a reasonable explanation for the scare. That bump-in-the-night was a cat jumping on a chair that lightly hit the wall. The skittering noise was the dog’s nails clicking on the tile floow when she trotted down the hallway. The shadow was a low-flying owl, circling the window as the two animals took turns taunting him from their inside safety.

It’s a full moon every night for Weredog

Blame the inside animals. That’s what I did the other night. While I like the scares while I’m awake, I’m not so crazy about being abruptly ripped from a deep sleep by noises at night. I don’t like lying in bed for minutes that seem like hours, waiting for that thing under my bed to slowly crawl out and grab me. I don’t dare step onto the floor else I’ll be pulled into the under-the-bed void of my childhood.

As sanity and focus slowly descend, we can laugh at ourselves for our fright. A carryover from childhood, I occasionally have a dream of the purple monster rising in my bedroom window. The fright it gave me at six years old is remarkably the same at my current older age. As it slowly rises up, the malevolence it emanated decades ago is just as strong today. In my nightmares, I know it’s no good but I’m as powerless to stop it now as I was in my single-digit years.

The stories I create in my mind from the scary things happening at night become the roux for some of my written works. While I don’t always keep the story line tight with the dream, I can trace a few of my stories and books to their chilly beginnings from the bumps-in-the-night I experience.

I like to be scared. I love scary movies, thrillers, zombies, flying monkeys, and the like. Shadowy things at night give me delicious chills. The supernatural is delightful – as long as I can explain it away, rationally, in the light of day.

Have a chilly, scary, rationally-explained Halloween!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

J J Dare is the author of two published books, several short stories and triple digit works-in-progress.

Current enthusiasm is sharpening intangible knives and co-authoring at Rubicon Ranch

***

J J Dare is the author of two published books, several short stories and triple digit works-in-progress.

Current enthusiasm is sharpening intangible knives and co-authoring at Rubicon Ranch

Facebook addiction